It’s no surprise that Apple’s new iPod Touch is far better than the previous model. Tech moves fast, and it has been three years since the company lavished any attention on this device.

The new version brings faster performance and better cameras, without sacrificing battery life or supersizing its measurements. That could be a winning trait or a problematic scenario, depending on what you plan to use it for.

The iPod Touch seems ideal for development or testing purposes, particularly since, starting at $199, it’s the cheapest Apple gadget that can run full iOS. But as great as the new version looks, it still comes with some trade-offs.

Here are a few things iOS developers need to know before they fill their carts with new iPods.

iPod Touch, Meet 2015

The iPod Touch has always been a watered-down version of Apple's flagship iPhone. That has plusses and minuses.

The new model’s updates take cues from the company’s iPhone 6 smartphones, but it still doesn't overcome a few key deficiencies that could be important considerations for app makers.

First, the improvements:

Fancy A8 Processor

Apple took the 64-bit chip powering its iPhones and stuffed it into the iPod Touch. The Apple-designed A8 is a major upgrade, compared to the previous A5 processor. But even though that hardware is the same, Apple appears to have underclocked it: The iPhone 6 runs it at 1.39GHz, but on the iPod Touch, the same chip works at 1.1GHz (possibly to help battery life).

Despite this, the company promises "10 times faster graphics performance,” and the power should keep many Metal-optimized games running well.

More Memory

To keep the performance going, Apple also bumped up the memory. The fifth-generation iPod Touch came with 512 megabytes of RAM. Its successor boasts 1 gigabyte. That's on par with every other Apple iOS device, apart from the iPad Air 2, which has 2 GB of RAM.

Better Cameras

The upgraded device includes a new 8-megapixel rear camera (up from 5 MP in the previous version), and an “improved” front camera. That matters, if you’re working on a photo or video app, or any phone-based VR or smart-home technology that uses a camera.

Thanks to a new image-processing chip, the new iPod Touch also offers a few of the same tricks as its iPhone cousins—like burst mode (at 10 frames per second) for still photos, slow-motion video recording (at 120 fps) and stabilization for video.

More Motion Tracking

In addition to the three-axis gyroscope and accelerometer, which can tell how you tilt or orient the device, the new gadget also features Apple's M8 motion coprocessor.

That’s a necessity for decent health and fitness tracking, which are areas of intense interest for the company. The older iPod Touch could run the Health app, but it couldn't track steps on its own—it had to rely on external trackers that work with Apple's HealthKit software. In other words, if you wanted to test features that depend on a motion coprocessor, you previously needed an iPhone 5S or 6.

Improved Wireless

As the world gets increasingly connected, mobile wireless technology becomes even more critical. But the Touch has never supported LTE or even 3G networks (otherwise it would be an iPhone, right?). That meant Wi-Fi and Bluetooth features need to be extremely solid in the iPod Touch.

Unfortunately, some developers have struggled with the older model's connectivity, more so than iPhones.

This time around, Apple amped up the new version's Wi-Fi powers with 802.11ac support. The newer specification may not be prevalent yet, but over time, older routers—which use the slower b, g, or n variants of the 802.11 standard—will make way for it. Apple says the upgrade gives the iPod “three times faster Wi-Fi.”

Apple also provisioned the new device with Bluetooth version 4.1—a profile that promises better battery efficiency and more reliable pairing.

This iPod Touch is Apple's first gadget to offer this Bluetooth profile out of the box. (Even the iPhone 6 is still stuck on 4.0.) That's exciting if you’re working on apps that tie into smart homes using Apple's HomeKit framework, or working with iBeacons or any other Bluetooth devices (like a CarPlay dashboard or an Apple Watch).

The iPod Still Can't Touch This

The changes make for a dramatically improved new iPod Touch. But it's not perfect. The latest generation still omits some important features, some of which have become increasingly significant for developers.

No Change In Screen

The new iPod Touch held onto its predecessor's 4-inch Retina display, at 1136 x 640 resolution—the same as the iPhone 5 and 5s. That makes it Apple's smallest iOS device right now.

The company’s current crop of portables now features five different display sizes—4 inches (iPod Touch), 4.7 inches and 5.5 inches (iPhones), and 7.9-inch and 9.7-inch (iPads). A sixth size may come this fall too, if there’s any truth to the iPad Pro rumors.

Apple gives developers a helping hand to deal with all those variations. Auto Layout and Interface Builder are powerful tools. But they're not a panacea—especially if you have to support older versions of iOS, or if your apps have interface elements that need a larger canvass to look or work well.

The smaller screen can be a help or a drawback here—it could help simulate older iPhones alongside a newer iPhone 6, but it may be limited as a standalone test device.

No Apple Pay

Even the iPad got Apple's fingerprint scanner. Not so for its smaller sibling. The device also skips short-range Near Field Communications (NFC). In other words, no Apple Pay.

In theory, the mobile payments system could have worked on the iPod Touch, since NFC technology doesn't require an Internet connection. But it lacks the special security hardware that the iPhone 6 and other Pay-compatible devices have. Too bad—since the iPod Touch is such an app-friendly device, it would have been great for testing e-commerce apps.

No GPS

On the Touch, apps that require location data have to rely on Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to kinda, sorta figure out where the user is. Good thing Apple improved both, but they’re still no replacement for cellular-based GPS.

This may not be a challenge for all developers. Apple’s Location Services is good enough for apps that only need a sporadic or general sense of where users are. But others that need more accuracy will struggle with this.

No Vibration

Rumors run high that the next iPhone (or iPhones) will feature Force Touch, the vibration response introduced in the Apple Watch. It showed up in Apple’s MacBooks shortly after.

It’s not clear yet what Force Touch might bring to the iPhone, so it's not a big loss to not be able to test the feature. But if you're already dreaming up games or other apps which make use of this feedback element, you'll have to wait for future hardware.

The Bottom Line

The new iPod Touch looks like a much-needed update. For smart-home developers especially, the improved Bluetooth support makes it a good test device. But the most important thing for developers to know is that their experience with this gadget will depend a lot on what they're building.

For some, the iPod Touch will be ideal, both in performance and price. However, for others, the perfect iOS test unit will still be a full-fledged iPhone.

Update: Firefox pulled support for Flash, but has re-enabled it by default following the release of security patches. For more, see below.

On Tuesday, Mozilla and Google stopped Adobe Flash dead in its tracks.

In a decision that threatens legions of restaurant websites that inexplicably still feature the Web plugin, the makers of the Firefox and Chrome browsers ended support for all versions of it. The move follows the recent discovery of zero-day security bugs in Flash.

The aging platform was already known for crashes and glitchy performance, but the security weakness appeared to be the last straw.

For Mozilla, the quick decision to pull the plug may be a positive sign for the browser maker. The open-source organization has been scrambling to get its mojo back in recent months, as usage for the once-popular Firefox browser fell behind rival Chrome.

When I caught up with Chris Beard, Mozilla’s CEO, at an event recently, he acknowledged that Mozilla had "lost its way." But he was excited about numerous initiatives the group has up its sleeve.

Now, in its apparent bid to claw its way back to relevancy for today’s Web, Firefox joined the first wave to shed one of the most frustratingly flawed and ungainly vestiges of the past.

The Anti-Flash Mob

Adobe Flash has no shortage of haters on the Web, and some have even built browser extensions to block the animation and video plugin.

One of the most infamous enemies of Adobe Flash was Steve Jobs. Five years ago, the late Apple CEO and co-founder posted his infamous “Thoughts On Flash” missive explaining why iPhones and iPads wouldn't support the technology. He didn’t call the platform a “toxic hellstew of vulnerabilities,” as his successor later described another technology, but that was pretty much his conclusion:

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now.

Different year, same problems. The most recent: Italy’s Hacking Team discovered Flash security bugs, which—considering the plugin’s widespread support—make an overwhelming proportion of today’s Web vulnerable to attacks. (Update: The holes have been patched. More here and below.)

Given that Flash is a resource-hungry, buggy and largely mobile-unfriendly technology (especially if you have an iPhone), it’s baffling how the Adobe platform has hung on this long.

Then again, that hold has been tenuous. Flash is essentially a leftover no one bothered to Hoover up yet. While it still has a grip on online games, Flash usage overall has slipped in favor of HTML5, which now runs on virtually every major browser and powers much of the online world’s videos.

So did YouTube, the massive Google-owned peddler of cat videos, Web shows and amateur uploads. Earlier this year, it fired Flash as its default player for videos. That Chrome would now cut ties too should surprise no one.

Flash has some surprising adherents. One example is Slack, the popular team communication tool, which uses Flash as a fallback client-server mechanism for older browsers that don't support WebSockets—chiefly older versions of Internet Explorer. But there are newer frameworks that allow Web-app developers to avoid even that scenario.

Among those jumping into the anti-Flash mob was Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos, who called for Adobe to kill it off. Considering the social giant's emphasis on shared video lately, that looked like another major sign of Flash's looming demise. (Of course, before Stamos continues his tirade, he may want to observe the ways in which his company still uses Flash.)

Unlike Facebook, however, Mozilla and Google took concrete steps to snuff it out.

For Mozilla, Flash Just Ain't Foxy

It might seem natural for Google, as one of the largest technology companies in the world, to respond swiftly to security problems. Mozilla might be another matter. The browser maker, owned by a nonprofit foundation, has had plenty of other things on its mind, after all—like working on its own comeback.

But Mozilla jumped on the matter, and its speedy response seemed to carry an unspoken message: When something’s so bad that Firefox dropped everything to boot it, maybe it really does need to die off posthaste.

Oof, rough crowd. But they're not wrong.

No argument there. But the move also happens to line up with what Mozilla has been up to—which is to fight its way back to relevance.

Mozilla's deal last year with Yahoo to replace Google ironically made Microsoft Bing the default search engine. Its Firefox operating system spread out from phones to TVs, but those results have been far too mixed and vague to qualify as successful (not to mention remotely profitable). The reaction to its "sponsored tiles” experiment was more decisive—but not in a good way. Users abhorred the idea, prompting Mozilla to end it.

The organization also found itself playing executive musical chairs, putting Chris Beard in the seat vacated by then-CEO Brendan Eich after his much-publicized departure last year.

Beard and his group want to put those days behind them. Instead of fixating on the past, they're keeping their eyes focused ahead with new Firefox efforts, like its multi-process Electrolysis project and its WebVR initiative for streaming virtual reality experiences.

I gave it a whirl a couple of weeks ago on an Oculus Rift (DK2), and it was impressive. The stream came in via Firefox without stutters, and my interactions worked smoothly.

That experience seems all the more relevant as we contemplate the death of Flash. It wouldn't enable experiences like WebVR. If anything, Flash would hold it back.

As Mozilla aims to reinvigorate Firefox and pursue passion projects like WebVR, it seems like there's no place in that future for a dusty plugin that can barely handle boring 2D video. Add in major security flaws, and there's not much left to redeem the old Adobe tech.

This strike against Flash won't be the last, so video creators, Web developers and others—ahem, Facebook—should take note.

We still don't believe Flash makes sense in the context of the organization's focus lately. It's just not positioned well for the future (or even the present, for that matter). However, it seems clear that Firefox's newfound responsiveness remains in full force to support the tools people use—whether they're frustrating or not.

In other words, for those in the Occupy Flash camp, now might be a good time to hit up Web developers, your local restaurants and anyone else responsible for keeping that old plugin alive.

Chances are you're either an iOS person or an Android person. Chances are also pretty good that whichever platform you’re currently using, you will remain faithful come upgrade time. Mobile devices, it turns out, are a little like political affiliation, ice cream preference, and James Bond fandom: Most of us find something we like, weave it into our identities, then vehemently defend it.

But every once in a while, much like our favorite Game of Thrones characters, someone unexpectedly changes sides. Maybe it’s screen size that tips the balance, or platform pressure from a group of new peers, or a particularly crafty salesperson with incentives to clear out aging inventory. Whatever the impetus, if you pay careful attention to smartphone metrics, although the majority of consumers remain devoted to their chosen clans, the tides do shift.

There are typically three parts to platform migration: getting accustomed to a new physical form factor, acclimating to a different user experience, and either navigating the perils of data migration yourself, or entrusting your entire digital life to someone else (usually either a smarmy sales rep, or a tech-savvy relative who can’t say no). Defecting from one mobile faction to another may be inconvenient, but it’s not yet impossible, which is why major platform players are inclined to steer their devices and services in a direction that increases not only their allure, but also the cost of abandonment. And an important new weapon of mass disincentive is wearables.

How Wearables Lock You In

Generally speaking, you have two types of wearables: platform-agnostic, and platform-dependent. Platform-agnostic wearables are devices that work with either iOS or Android (and in some cases, even Windows Phone). These include most fitness trackers like the Fitbit, and some smartwatches like the Pebble Time and Garmin Fenix 3.

Their main advantage is that you can pair them with whatever device you happen to have, and they usually function pretty consistently—or, at least, to within a tolerable variance.

Platform-dependent wearables, on the other hand, are those that will only work with one brand of device, and in fact, are better conceptualized as extensions of those devices rather than standalone gadgets. Canonical examples include Apple Watch, Android Wear devices and most of the myriad of wrist-top concoctions hatched by Samsung. The advantage of platform-dependent wearables is that they integrate with your phone’s OS more tightly, leveraging APIs and services that third-party devices might not have access to, and generally delivering a more seamless and better unified user experience. But the disadvantage of such a tight coupling is that you are more heavily invested in that one specific platform, limiting your options the next time you find yourself upgrade-eligible.

If the rumors about Google working on iOS support for Android Wear are true, it’s possible that a third category of wearables is about to emerge: platform-preferred. A platform-preferred device is one that can be considered “native” to one platform, but can function at some level when paired with the competition.

The problem with the prospect of pairing an Android Wear smartwatch with an iPhone is that—due to constraints that limit deep third-party OS integration, or simply fundamental discrepancies in platform features—you are likely to find yourself in a kind of purgatory where your experience is worse than if you were using an Android phone, and also not as good as if you were wearing an Apple Watch. Many iPhone users who try to use Google services exclusively are already familiar with this unfortunate dynamic.

For example, you won’t be able to access Apple Pay from a Moto 360 (or probably any other Android Wear device, current or future), nor will you be able to smart unlock your iPhone with your watch. As a result, the more invested you become in wearables, the more you are probably going to be tempted to bring your devices into more harmonious alignment.

For the truly platform devout, party-line conformity isn’t a problem. In fact, it’s practically a feature since it dramatically simplifies things like compatibility, upgrade decisions, and support. But for those of us who like to keep our options open—who want to ensure that some of the most powerful entities on the face of the planet continue to be motivated to compete for our fealty—the rise of wearables presents a pretty serious compatibility conundrum.

Google primarily makes money from services, so it makes sense to try to establish as much of a presence as possible across multiple platforms and devices. But for a company like Apple—one of the few companies left that still enjoys huge profit margins on hardware—deep device and platform integration isn’t just a convenience for customers. It’s a business imperative.

On the other hand, if the Apple Watch were compatible with any modern smartphone, while still offering additional features and functionality when paired with phones of their own noble lineage, the total addressable market would instantly skyrocket.

The only reasonable conclusion is that there is much more to be gained in platform acquisition and retention than there is in simply shipping and selling a few million more devices per quarter. Public companies need their revenue to be as predictable, consistent, and as steady as possible which means they require their customers to be as loyal (or locked-in—either way works) as possible.

They need such business and marketing constructs as customer and product pipelines; they need subscribers to services as opposed to isolated impulse buys; and they need the walls of their ever-expanding gardens to grow increasingly unassailable.

Of course, to not do everything possible (or at least legal) to retain customers would ultimately be irresponsible. Most of these companies would find themselves playing by different rules than their competition, putting them at a distinct disadvantage.

It's Going To Be A Bumpy Ride

As wearables become increasingly available, capable, and prevalent, I think it’s worth acknowledging the paradox many of them embody. In one sense, they are about freeing us from phones, PCs, and other less convenient technologies by making information and human connection much more readily accessible.

In exchange for freeing ourselves from one burden, we are agreeing to take on another. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t buy devices like smartwatches; it just means we should be fully aware of the fact that, as much as we’re strapping devices to ourselves, we are also strapping ourselves to our devices.

For Apple, this may be a new high (or low, depending on your point of view). Writer Mark Gurman's source claims Apple has been working with select third-party manufacturers over the last six months on new designs, and the changes will come into force next week. Those partners apparently cover brands that already have a presence in Apple Stores, including Tech21, Sena, Incase, Mophie, Logitech and Life Proof.

The most likely end result: Rows and rows of largely plain, white boxes with simple fonts, high-quality packaging materials, new photography and more consistent compatibility labeling. The accessories will essentially look a lot like official Apple products. Meanwhile, device makers who refuse to see their containers made over will be shown the door. In other words, inventory for items that don't follow the new Apple design guidelines will be phased out.

Retail Strategy

Rumors of the move first surfaced in June, and Apple's new store on the Upper East Side in New York looks like a sign of things to come. Under SVP of retail Angela Ahrendts, the company's brick-and-mortar retail outlets seem to be heading in a distinctly premium direction—which is something the Apple Watch will probably help with.

In that context, Apple likely sees brash or unrefined product packaging as the enemy—an eyesore marring the high-end feel it's going for. That makes perfect sense for Apple, if it wants full control over everything customers see when they walk through its doors. Less so for accessory partners.

Getting into the store to begin with can be a major feat, but product makers will have to decide if keeping their place is worth letting someone else mess with a core marketing and brand-imaging approach like packaging. Some vendors may face a tough decision: Complicate production by creating different designs for Apple stores alone, or extend the tech company's aesthetics across the whole product line, so that every unit shipped to every other retailer follows suit. Larger companies can manage it, but smaller outfits may struggle with that.

Either way, they have to sign up to Apple's way of doing business to get or stay in. It's a price that some are willing to pay for now. But not everyone will agree to Apple's ultimatum—which means plenty of chargers, cables, cases, headphones, speakers, fitness bands and numerous other gadgets could have to find a new home elsewhere.

Earlier in the year there were whispers the Apple Watch could be in line for its own dedicated store. That hasn't happened yet, but it wouldn't be a huge surprise if it's still on Apple's road map—such is the care, attention and perhaps hyperfocus the company seems to be taking in its retail approach.

For now, those wearables remain in high-end luxury stores and Apple's own shops, hoping its spotlight will glow a little brighter against a more uniform, Applesque backdrop.

The tech industry seems to have reached full lather over this trend, with companies big and small rushing in to connect all manner of gadgets, home appliances, even cars and other technologies, to the each other and the Internet.

The reason is obvious: McKinsey points to $4 trillion to $11 trillion of positive economic impact each year by 2025. But its report also highlights roadblocks that stubbornly refuse to go away. Increasingly, the world is going to need to turn to open source to get the standards "unstuck."

The Slices In The $11 Trillion Pie

Not all industries are created equal when it comes to IoT's disruptive force. McKinsey has highlighted a few areas where the trend could have the biggest financial impact.

While smart homes may be the consumer face of this movement, the broader potential lies in other areas—like manufacturing, connected cities, healthcare and retail.

Apparently some of the biggest opportunities for data—specifically, IoT data—to change the world won't be found in Silicon Valley. Instead they'll be found in croplands, factories, and other supposedly low-tech industries.

In other words, the older and more hidebound the industry, the greater the potential for IoT to up-end it.

What's Blocking The Future

Unfortunately, there are plenty of factors impeding this data-rich future. The problems range from the 400-plus competing IoT standards to lack of global Internet connectivity, and more.

McKinsey also offers a range of complicating factors. Topping the firm's list, rightly so, is the matter of varying standards which prevent many systems and devices from communicating with each other. The firm describes this incompatibility as the primary roadblock:

Interoperability between IoT systems is critical. Of the total potential economic value the IoT enables, interoperability is required for 40 percent on average and for nearly 60 percent in some settings.

The report goes on to suggest two fixes: "Adopting open standards is one way to accomplish interoperability. Interoperability can also be achieved by implementing systems or platforms that enable different IoT systems to communicate with one another."

Vendors largely control the 400-plus competing standards, but the battle for developer hearts won't be won by a corporate logo-laden home page. Open source, however, could help, allowing developers to focus on interoperable code, rather than interoperable vendors.

Stop Hoarding Data—Use It

The other major problem with IoT efforts, which is endemic in big data generally, is that the vast majority of the information that companies cull never actually gets used to its fullest effect.

By McKinsey's estimates, just 1% of such data finds an actionable purpose—largely because tech makers use sensor data to capture anomalies in the system, not to optimize or advance their technology.

This may surprise anyone who believes that IoT begins and ends with the Apple Watch. But in that case, roughly 70% of its value will be captured in business-to-business scenarios—not from consumers nervously twitching at every buzz and chirp of their wearable device. In other words, there's more money to be made from optimizing connected irrigation systems, rather than your next work-out at the gym.

Regardless of environment, universal standards could buoy efforts across the board to increase the overall size of the market, while some strategic thinking about all that data could improve its utility. Otherwise, without some foresight, we could wind up falling back on Apple and Google to make it all happen.

Who Wins?

What seems increasingly evident is that Google may be the best positioned of the two tech giants to capitalize on the IoT opportunity.

Apple appears to be relying on its traditional strength of enticing consumers with new products or gadgets. In contrast, Google unveiled two new initiatives, its Brillo IoT operating system and its Weave communications protocol, which trod new ground by branching out into industrial applications, connected agriculture and remote infrastructure.

Given these moves, the market may not wait around for open-source standards to finally get everyone on the same command line. With as much as $11 trillion at stake, it could just take the fastest route and rely on Google (or Apple) to deliver IoT products.

Either way, customers will be the real winners. McKinsey estimates that, of the enormous potential IoT fortune, 90% of the value will go to customers, not vendors—though even a 10% sliver that $11 trillion pie would be plenty for a dominant player to feast on. At least it will be, whenever it is that the connected future arrives.

Curious about how exactly Apple's smart home will work? Wonder no longer: Apple has finally provided some much-needed answers with an updated HomeKit support page, which outlines some specific, practical information about how to use the system.

Apple has touted its HomeKit smart-home framework since last year, promising that people will soon be able to use their iPhones and iPads to control home appliances—everything from lights and thermostats to coffeemakers. But the promise has remained vague, primarily because Apple has stayed relatively mum about this initiative in the public eye. That has left some folks to wonder if the company underestimated the complexities involved in building its own smart-home system.

While the support page is not exactly a heartfelt or glossy commercial, at least it explains how Apple sees users controlling the action. Accompanying the site update, the company also provided some live hands-on product demos this week and pledged to educate consumers on to run an Apple smart home.

Going Home(Kit)

Here's how Apple currently envisions HomeKit working: To begin controlling HomeKit-compatible devices, you download the gadget's iOS app from the App Store, then you pair your device to an iPhone or iPad.

From there, you simply fire up the Siri voice assistant on those mobile devices and talk to it to command your home. You can tell Siri to turn the lamp on or off, dim the lights or turn on other appliances. The HomeKit system can also sort connected gadgets by room (bedroom, dining room, living room, etc.), so you can control groups of devices or create more complicated commands.

A notable inclusion: If you have a third-generation Apple TV or later, you can issue HomeKit commands remotely.

Rumors ran high that Apple would integrate HomeKit into its next Apple TV, and this essentially cements it. With the Apple TV sitting in the house, it acts as command central, so you can control things remotely. While you're on the go, you just speak into your phone, and the set-top box carries out the commands for you back home.

Apple May Bring It Home For The Holidays

Though it appears to be ramping up, Apple has still not issued an official timeline for HomeKit. The company featured it prominently at its Worldwide Developers Conference last year, but a year hence, and WWDC earlier this month was mostly devoid of HomeKit announcements.

That belies what must be furious activity going on behind the scenes. The company has been pushing hard, not just on software development (and presumably Apple TV hardware development), but also to further partner initiatives. HomeKit's device line-up covers Philips Hue smart lightbulbs, Schlage Bluetooth door locks, iDevices Switch and others, including iHome, Elgato, Ecobee, Insteon and Lutron. (The latter just released the Caséta lighting kit as the first HomeKit compatible product on the market.)

These factors all seem to point to a big coming-out party for HomeKit in the near future, probably at its fall press event.

The timing works on a number of levels: It would give the company a couple of more months to work out the kinks before the big consumer push, and offer up yet another exciting Apple announcement to flesh out its fall presentation (beyond what may be incrementally updated iPhone 6S devices, that is).

Perhaps most importantly, it could also offer shoppers some intriguing new possibilities—like giving the gift of an Apple smart home for the holidays.

Lead photo courtesy of Apple; screenshots by ReadWrite; Caséta photo courtesy of Lutron

The choice to ban a symbol of slavery, but not of mass genocide, highlights how tech companies struggle to apply hate speech guidelines — often with strange inconsistency. It's obviously a gray area, one that could pose a real conundrum for app developers forced to comply with confusing rules.

Here's an example: Apple, in its haste to remove apps and games bearing the Confederate flag, has even banned popular Civil War re-enactment games that display the flag in historical context, such as Civil War 1863.

In other words, at the moment, Apple allows me kill virtual Nazis. But not Confederate generals.

What Constitutes Hate Speech Or Symbols?

According to gaming blog Kotaku, Apple's message to the director of these Civil War Games, Andrew Mulholland, states: “We are writing to notify you that your app has been removed from the App Store because it includes images of the Confederate flag used in offensive and mean-spirited ways.”

The eviction appears to be swift. Indeed, I looked for the game in the App Store, and couldn't find it (as of this writing).

Maxim Zasov of Game Labs, a developer of the Civil War Game Ultimate General: Gettysburgexplained in a statement why he would not remove the flag to comply with Apple’s new rules.

We receive a lot of letters of gratitude from American teachers who use our game in history curriculum to let kids experience one of the most important battles in American history from the Commander’s perspective…

Therefore we are not going to amend the game’s content and Ultimate General: Gettysburg will no longer be available on AppStore. We really hope that Apple’s decision will achieve the desired results. We can’t change history, but we can change the future.

Apple, like Facebook and Google, have a long history of restricting speech deemed offensive or hateful. Google famously removed a game simulating the bombing of Gaza, and Apple removes “gay cure” apps. In trying to restrict pictures of bare nipples, Facebook has struggled with breastfeeding photos, initially banning them and then later loosening the policy in the face of ensuing criticism.

Removing hate speech or imagery is no easy task. Tech companies manage an unwieldy volume of user-generated posts, images and other media. Staff of even very profitable tech companies are vastly outnumbered, compared to the public at large. Applying algorithms or blanket rules is an efficient way of dealing with issues, but the result tends to err on the side of censorship.

Censorship rules are especially problematic, as websites, mobile apps and social networks become the dominant channels for free speech. Ultimately, tech companies are powerful new gatekeepers of the 1st Amendment, and their decisions have profound implications.

I have reached out to Apple and have not yet received a response to clarify its position on the Confederate flag vs. other symbols associated with hate groups.

Update: Late Thursday, Apple confirmed to TechCrunch that it is in the process of evaluating and restoring certain apps, like games and educational apps. The site posted, "The company says it’s working with developers to quickly get their games reinstated to the App Store." The company's goal is to "remove those titles that could offend," at its discretion.

Competing browser makers, led by Mozilla’s Firefox engineers, made a surprising revelation last week: They've been secretly working on a joint project that could vault the Web into its next stage of evolution.

"I'm happy to report that we at Mozilla have started working with Chromium, Edge and WebKit engineers on creating a new standard, WebAssembly,” Luke Wagner, one of the project's leaders, wrote in a blog post.

The immediate effect of WebAssembly (known as "wasm" for short) is that it should make online browsing faster. But that may be its least exciting benefit.

The standard could give developers the ability to take powerful, processor-hungry experiences—the type that has been primarily restricted to desktop software—and make them work well online. WebAssembly shouldn’t overcomplicate development, either. On the contrary, it streamlines the process, making Web-app creation easier.

That has deep implications in today's app-obsessed world. All too often, developers and users are forced to pick hardware-oriented sides—Apple’s iOS and OS X, Google’s Android, Microsoft’s Windows, or another platform. If WebAssembly works to usher in powerful Web apps, developers tired of making (or remaking) apps to suit specific platforms could have a way off the porting merry-go-round.

The most promising aspect thus far: The standard won’t have to fight for support. Thanks to its origins as a collaboration between Web-standards rivals, the project will arrive with support from the major browsers already baked in.

Crossing The Wasm

When it comes to technical standards, adoption is no small matter. Some standards can age or even die on the shelf, waiting for widespread support. Take wireless charging, for instance.

Fighting between three major organizations, each championing a different approach, has kept the tech makers from rallying behind a particular one. Although two consortia have merged recently, the fight’s still not over.

In contrast, WebAssembly has a dream team of Chromium, WebKit and Edge browser engineers behind it, making it destined for widespread support from the world’s leading browsers—namely Google’s Chrome; Apple’s Safari; and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer replacement, Edge; as well as Mozilla’s Firefox.

Such collaboration among rivals seems remarkable, especially in the highly competitive world of technology. But it also reminds us what can be accomplished when smart people put their minds together. WebAssembly stands to offer Web applications with desktop-class performance across categories—from advanced gaming, video editing, even virtual-reality (VR) activities. And users would be able to access those apps from anywhere, without fussing with downloads or software installations.

That could give a big boost to technologies like virtual reality. Developers would have numerous ways to bring their projects to the public, while users get more to enjoy. (That’s one reason for YouTube’s new support for 360-degree videos.)

WebAssembly's technical underpinnings could give developers even more reason to cheer.

No JavaScript Killer—More Like A JavaScript Booster

Let’s unpack that a little: Much of today’s Web was made with JavaScript, the Web development language created in 1995 by Brendan Eich, formerly of Netscape and Mozilla. Without it, static webpages would stretch out endlessly before our bored eyeballs. Instead, we now have dynamic features, from simple games and animations, to bookmark applets and full-blown Web apps.

JavaScript is not the only game in town, but it has been the most popular. Now WebAssembly aims to improve upon it, both in power and ease. In that regard, it's tempting to call the new standard a Javascript killer. But that’s not quite accurate. WebAssembly doesn’t replace, but adds to JavaScript, filling in some important gaps—oddly enough, by drilling down to some basics.

Mozilla and its new pals have given developers a binary format for the Web. They get access to low-level building blocks, so they can essentially construct whatever they want.

The further you dig into the technical details, the better WebAssembly seems. For example, it offers developers a better way to compile code without wanting to pull their hair out. Compilers act as translators for source code, making it understandable for other languages and letting it be acted upon, as in executable programs. It’s a critical part of development, and WebAssembly can step in as the compilation target, easing JavaScript’s load. Rauschmayer explains that WebAssembly may be most useful "for performance critical code and to compile other languages (especially C/C++) to the web platform.”

[W]ith co-evolution of JS and wasm, in a few years I believe all the top browsers will sport JS engines that have become truly polyglot virtual machines. I predict that JS over the same timespan will endure and evolve to absorb more APIs and hardware-based affordances — but not all, where wasm carries the weight.

WebAssembly may still be in its early stages, but its potential already seems big. Hopefully the reality will match the promise, because a faster, more efficient—and more powerful—Web just can’t get here fast enough.

In Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Ashlee Vance's excellent, newly released biography of the Tesla Motors CEO, he writes that Musk's all-electric Model S Tesla sedan "slapped Detroit sober," despite the automobile industry tinkering with electric cars for years. Musk went further, and is winning big.

This same principle helps to explain Apple's and Amazon's successes, too. In each case, these companies have been willing to bet 100 percent on the future, rather than hedging or bridging to the past.

Let's start with Tesla.

Going Big On Batteries

I noted that the automobile industry had been working on electric vehicles for years, but that's not quite true. What the industry kept foisting on us were half-baked compromises—you know, hybrid cars that looked like hamsters (Toyota Prius) and felt like they were powered by them, too.

Tesla, however, is different. As Vance writes:

With Tesla Motors, Musk has tried to revamp the way cars are manufactured and sold, while building out a worldwide fuel distribution network at the same time. Instead of hybrids, which in Musk lingo are suboptimal compromises, Tesla strives to make all-electric cars that people lust after and that push the limits of technology.

I remember the first time I test drove a Model S. It didn't feel like a compromise. It felt like the coolest driving experience I've ever had, and I've wanted to buy one ever since.

Musk and his Tesla team could have come out with the world's greatest hybrid, but that would have also been the world's greatest compromise. He's inventing the future, not making a comfortable causeway to the past. That's why he's winning.

Apple Goes All In On Touch

Apple has followed a similar track with the iPhone, by far its biggest success. At the time of its release, though, success was far from certain.

After all, Apple turned its back on the industry's dominant mobile experience—Blackberry—and built a phone without a physical keyboard. At the time I thought this was insane, and said so. Nor was I alone in believing that a keyboard without tactile feedback would be a non-starter.

Apple was right, and I was wrong. Apple saw the possibilities inherent in a full touchscreen experience, while I and others were languishing in "Why isn't it like what I'm used to?" land. Microsoft, Research In Motion (as BlackBerry Inc. was then known), and other mobile manufacturers lost billions trying to appease their existing customer base while Apple's futuristic approach stole them away.

And it's not just in consumer tech where these lessons apply.

Amazon's "True Cloud" Wins Converts

Take enterprise infrastructure, for example. In theory, nothing should be more resistant to change, as enterprises are reluctant to fix things that don't appear to be broken.

In practice, however, Amazon Web Services is turning enterprise IT upside down.

Sure, it's only a $5 billion business today, while hundreds of billions more gets spent on datacenters and software licenses. But directionally, AWS is winning, and winning big. It's currently ten times this size of the next largest 14 cloud competitors combined, according to Gartner, and shows no sign of slowing.

Like Tesla and Apple, AWS wins because it offers an unalloyed vision of the future.

For years we've been told that enterprises won't move workloads to the cloud for performance or security reasons, and for years companies keep doing it, anyway. For almost as long, we've been told that cloud is great but private cloud or hybrid cloud are what the enterprise really wants.

Meanwhile, AWS has left all private and hybrid clouds for roadkill.

Inventing The Future

Compromise is great in human relationships. It's not so great in product decisions.

Tesla Motors, Apple, and Amazon Web Services keep winning because they've refused to compromise on an exceptional customer experience, one that pushes us into the future, rather than bridging us to the past. Other companies also do this, like Red Hat with its laser-sharp focus on delivering 100% open-source solutions.

But most companies compromise. Most companies are afraid to go all-in on the future. And that is why most companies will never inspire us the way Tesla, Apple, and Amazon do.

Although its original Apple Watch has only been on the market for a couple of months, the company may have plenty of reason to focus on the next generation device already. Estimates figure sales levels are only approaching 3 million units. (Perhaps tellingly, Apple hasn't announced official numbers.)

Apple also supposedly wants to fill the gap between the $1,000 stainless steel model and the $10,000 gold edition. The report claims another premium price tier will fall somewhere above the $1,000 level. There's a lot of wiggle room between those two points for the company to experiment with different materials.

If the story pans out, then it would appear that Apple's push for more features and options could be its way of drumming up more enthusiasm for its watch. However, if that's the goal, then stuffing potentially battery-draining features into a gadget that already suffers from mediocre battery life may not be the way to go.

Although the watch can do some limited things on its own—like Apple Pay and activity tracking—it requires an iPhone for most functions. Now, the 9to5Mac story explains that "Apple intends to integrate a new and more dynamic wireless chipset into the wearable," for even more functionality apart from an iPhone. Think checking emails, iMessages, weather forecasts and so on over Wi-Fi. Less need for an iPhone may also set the stage for Android support someday, whether officially or through jailbreaking.

Smartwatch independence matters most when you don't want to take your phone with you, while running, cycling and exploring the great outdoors. You could make a case that GPS tracking (recently added to Android Wear) would be much more useful in those scenarios than beefing up Wi-Fi support.

In any case, increased Wi-Fi usage shouldn't necessarily hammer the Apple Watch's power cell too badly—unless it's often hunting for a network. The signal search can bring even larger devices to their knees.

The possibility of a FaceTime camera is even more surprising. Samsung already tried putting a camera on a smartwatch with its early Galaxy Gear, and it didn't go down too well. But the hardware may be less interesting than the premise that Apple would want us video calling from our wrists.

The first Galaxy Gear smartwatch from Samsung had a goofy, and underwhelming, band-situated camera.

Consider this: On a color touchscreen device, what really slams the battery is the display. (It's the reason Pebble chose e-paper screens for its smartwatches.) Holding up your arm long enough for a video chat may be uncomfortable and annoying, but it's nothing compared to FaceTime drilling holes in your watch's already meager power bucket. (According to Gurman's report, watches can end the day with roughly 30% to 40% battery, though with moderate use.)

Gurman's source says the new device won't improve on the first watch's battery life, despite the changes. But it's hard to see how that will be possible, given the practical and physical realities of a small device.

One thing seems clear: If the second Apple Watch can't improve longevity, then at the very least, it can't make it worse. Otherwise, version 2 runs a serious risk of flopping when it comes out.

By The Numbers

No doubt, some people might take advantage of FaceTime on the watch. But in general, the space for that camera component would surely be better used for a larger battery.

That seems low, particularly for a company accustomed to high volume launch sales. (Its iPhone 6 phones pulled in 10 million over their first weekend.) Of course, no one, including Apple, expects the watch to come anywhere near iPhone 6 sales. Superficially, the estimate puts the smartwatch roughly on par with the first iPad's sales back in 2010.

That may not be a sign of great things to come. iPad sales have been slumping lately, and for Apple's long game, a lot more may be riding on the watch.

As the company's "most personal" device amid initiatives that seem all-too-personal—from our phones, computers, homes, cars, TVs, health and fitness—Apple needs its watch to become a huge success, as a crucial access point for the whole system.

Apple may know what its watch is good for, but that doesn't mean customers do. One of the overarching themes from the past year—for both the Apple Watch and Android wearables—has been that we're still not sure exactly what to do with this new breed of device.

Against that backdrop, it's no surprise to see Apple and others pile on the features. But getting the basics right first would be a better approach in the long run.

Google Maps for Android just got an interesting new update: The app can warn you if your destination will be closed by the time you arrive. Android Police noticed the change, which relies in part on information from your Gmail account—like car reservation details, flights and hotel bookings—to provide the warnings.

The timing is tough to overlook. Apple also recently announced new features for its Maps app—in this case, to finally add public transit information with its next iPhone software, iOS 9. But while Apple may be playing catch up by finally including this long-awaited feature, Google seems focused on going beyond what users expect.

The update may be incremental, but it could point to the company's larger road-worthy ambitions. Consider a signpost signalling where Google really wants to go.

Helpful Assistant, Will Travel

Apple and Google have a history of locking horns on the mapping front. In 2012, the iPhone maker yanked Google Maps from its handsets, replacing it with its own homegrown—and kind of buggy—application as the default. Eventually, Apple succumbed to user demand and allowed Google Maps back on the handset, albeit as an optional app download.

Apple CEO Tim Cook even issued "mea culpas" for Maps' lack of transit directions by diverting users to third-party apps, including Google's. His company will finally fill in that glaring hole soon, but meanwhile, rival Google's application keeps evolving.

Here's the gist: Imagine plotting a route to a restaurant that closes at 10pm. If it's 9:30, and it's going to take you 30 minutes or more to get there, then Google Maps displays an onscreen warning to let you know, with the message, "Your destination may be closed by the time you arrive." You can then choose to abandon the trip or push on regardless.

While perhaps not big on sex appeal, the update seems long on helpfulness. It also works as a reminder that Google's never done developing its mapping product, as well as how much work Apple has to do to catch up.

Where Google Wants To Go

In the last 12 months alone, Google has rolled out numerous new mapping-related features: the ability to send directions to your phone from the desktop, lane guidance for 15 extra European countries, an option to share directions through other Android apps, tips about your destination and an Explore Nearby feature for discovering places of note in your vicinity. The app even offers virtual reality Street Views for Google Cardboard VR viewers.

Of course, many of those features only work if the app has accurate information to begin with, which is one reason Apple wants to reduce its reliance on third-party mapping data providers and control its own database.

Apple Maps has improved a lot since its launch as well. (At the very least, we're not hearing about driving directions to take a hard turn off a bridge recently.) Google's offering continues to demonstrate the benefits of 10 years of mapping experience, as well as its ability to mine your emails for bookings and travel data.

Before long, the maps battle could ramp up even further—especially with Apple and Google both trying to claim the driver's seat with their respective CarPlay and Android Auto initiatives. Maps will be a key foundation for these approaches, not to mention Google's other passion project, its driverless car—which could mean we're not done seeing Google Maps try its best to morph into full-fledged travel assistants.

To check out the new Google Maps feature, make sure you have the latest app update or download Maps v9.10 for Android from the Play Store.

Yet more evidence that Apple will release a larger, productivity-oriented version of the iPad: According to a tweet posted Monday morning, Irish developer Steve Troughton Smith offered visual proof that users will be able to resize the iPad’s UIKeyboard (or on-screen keyboard) to a much larger degree than ever before.

The images, taken from iOS 9's early "beta" software, reveal keys to the left and right sides of the virtual QWERTY keyboard that don’t exist in the current iPad.

There wouldn’t be much reason for Apple to give iOS 9 users a bigger keyboard without a device that could take advantage of it—like the highly anticipated, work-focused "iPad Pro." The much-rumored device is expected to come with a 12-inch display, which would be the company's largest tablet to date. (The current iPad Air 2 features a 9.7-inch screen.)

This joins a few details already confirmed by Apple, which showed off various forms of same-screen multi-tasking at its Worldwide Developers Conference last week—some of which is exclusive to only the iPad Air 2.

A shot of the forthcoming iOS 9 virtual keyboard Apple showed off at WWDC in early June

All signs seem to point to a big-screened iPad finally making its way to the public. With Apple's iPad announcement likely arriving this October, there's still plenty of time for even more clues to emerge. In the meantime, Smith’s discovery could spur developers to start imagining how their apps may work on a larger screen.

Although there was no new Apple TV announcement at the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on Monday, that doesn't mean Apple has ignored its streaming set-top box. In fact, it just increased the number of TV devices developers could test their apps, boosting the number to 100 units this week.

Granted, that may not seem like a major development—unless you consider that Apple may be setting the stage for a windfall of new third-party apps for the living room screen.

That's the way developer Ouriel Ohayon took the news. Having noticed the change, he tweeted out a screenshot along with the words: "Apple TV apps are coming."

There's reason to think he might be right.

The Need For More Testing

Apple raised the limitations on test devices to 100 per device category. In other words, developers can test their apps on 100 iPhones, 100 iPads, and so on. The more devices you use to test apps, the more bugs you find and squash, presumably. (Previously, developers could only register a collective total of 100 across all product types, MacRumors points out.)

It makes plenty of sense for Apple to expand that allotment for phones, tablets and watches. All of them allow users to download apps on different models and in various conditions. It's so reasonable, in fact, that it's hard to believe the company waited this long to open up this limitation.

The Apple TV, however, doesn't fit into this mold. It's a stationary device that stays tied to television sets, pulling in streams off the same broadband network at all times. (It is, after all, a box—not a Chromecast or another pocket-friendly gadget suited for portability.) Widespread testing for Apple TV apps would also make less sense, if Apple sticks with its current way of dealing with TV apps. The company cherry-picks partners and work with them to deliver their software to the set-top through updates.

But now, expectations run high that the tech company will pack a slew of new features into its former "hobby," among them third-party apps (probably through the App Store or a subset within it).

Although the Apple TV product line predates Google's year-old Android TV initiative by six years, the latter—as a platform—has already outpaced it by leaps and bounds.

Apple CEO Tim Cook likely wants to keep it that way, especially if the box, as expected, will become the lynchpin of his company's push into the home.

Bringing HomeKit Home

Finally unleashing apps could go a long way toward keeping long-ignored Apple TV feeling fresh and enticing—particularly as the streaming market heats up. Users have long demanded more apps for the device. But that's not the only reason to broaden the scope of its testing.

The next generation of the Apple TV will probably boast Siri voice integration and smart home control using Apple's HomeKit framework too. And all those new HomeKit-compatible devices tying into the box may need plenty of testing to work with the system too.

The first HomeKit-compatible product—Lutron's new Caséta Wireless smart lighting starter kit—has already arrived. Currently, it works with the Apple Watch and the iPhone, but it's still missing the set-top box, which would come in handy in certain situations.

For instance, the watch seems to take some basic voice commands just fine. But it has to "handoff" to the iPhone for anything more involved—like asking it to "turn off the bedroom light." That can be annoying, if your phone's charging by the bedside and you're sitting in the living room. If you have to get up, you might as well flip the switch manually. A Siri-supporting Apple TV hooked into the smart home could help by giving you another point of control.

Apple announced HomeKit last year, and it risks losing even more steam if the full system misses the holiday shopping deadline. Good thing for Apple that it usually holds a press event (or two) in the fall. Last year, the company unveiled its new iPhones in September, followed by new iPads in October.

This year, the next generation of big phones and tablets could have some company. As for other interested developers—now might be a good time to start thinking about how your apps should look on the biggest screen in the house.

Apple's street fight with Google just became official: The iPhone maker confirmed that it's building its own mapping database, complete with Street View-style imagery, through a new page on its website.

"Apple is driving vehicles around the world to collect data which will be used to improve Apple Maps," the site reads. "Some of this data will be published in future Apple Maps updates."

The revelation solves the mystery of the unmarked Apple minivans spotted around the Bay Area in February. Rumors were rife that the Cupertino, Calif. company was working on either self-driving or electric cars. But 9to5Mac nailed it, when the site revealed that the camera-equipped vehicles were, in fact, collecting data for Apple's homegrown maps database—though it's not clear yet whether the company will pursue a variation of Street View that blends it with the existing 3D "flyover" view, as the blog asserted.

Either way, Apple apparently wants to reduce its heavy reliance on third-party services and data collected from external sources. The Maps app's notorious inaccuracies have often stemmed from problems aggregating all this data.

Now the tech giant wants to take more control over Maps as it ratchets up the stakes in its rivalry with Google.

Mapping Wars

Changes are coming to Maps in iOS 9.

Since launching its native Maps app in 2012, replacing Google Maps as the default mapping application on iPhones and iPads, Apple has been busy acquiring smaller companies to bolster its database of local businesses and transportation links. Meanwhile, it has relied on data from TomTom to flesh out its mapping and navigation information.

Yet, after working steadily to banish the infamous errors and glitches that riddled the app in its premiere year, the general perception is that it still lags behind Google. Three years in, and public transit information is only just arriving with iOS 9. Apple Maps also has no Web interface and, of course, no presence on Android.

In ComScore figures released last year, Google Maps had a 46.2 percent reach among iOS and Android users in the US, with Apple Maps down on 27.5 percent. With maps so central to the mobile platform, Apple knows it has to do better.

Right now we don't know much about the data Apple is collecting, but it promises to "blur faces and license plates on collected images," which sounds like a Street View-style feature will be in the mix. The likelihood is that end users won't notice much difference in the actual app.

The company doesn't seem in much of a rush, though: It lists just 14 locations in the United States, plus a handful of spots in England and Ireland, where its vans will be visiting through June.

It might want to get a few more vans out on the road—and on the ski slopes—if it's serious about catching up to Google.

This post first appeared on the Ferenstein Wire, a syndicated news service; it has been edited. For inquires, please email author and publisher Gregory Ferenstein.

If you want an idea of how the phone in your pocket and watch on your wrist are trying to change you, Apple's announcements Monday are a great place to start.

The company will offer new metrics for its expansive health-data monitoring system, Healthkit. Apple will begin tracking behaviors essential for a happy mood and focused mind, including hydration and ultra-violet light exposure. Of all the medical measurements that the world’s richest tech company could have announced at its much-hyped developers conference, it chose to a make a big deal out of little behaviors that the most health-obsessed people among us already do.

Apple seems to be inching forward in its pursuit of the perfect human: It apparently wants to make people smarter, faster, and stronger, prodding them along with little Apple buzzes throughout the day. Exactly 10 minutes before every hour, the Apple Watch vibrates on countless wrists across the country to prompt users to “stand up!”

Now reminding users to drink water or get some sun will become the next iteration of Apple nudges. Consider it the latest step toward the company's ultimate goal: keeping its users strong and healthy.

Hydration and Sunlight Matter

“Even mild dehydration that can occur during the course of our ordinary daily activities can degrade how we are feeling,” Harris Lieberman, a research psychologist at the US Army’s Military Nutrition Division Research, explained to UConn Today. It has been associated with “degraded mood, increased perception of task difficulty, lower concentration, and headache symptoms,” he added, especially for women.

Ironically, to date, the best known consumer wearable technology for measuring hydration is not the sophisticated Apple Watch, but the more limited Jawbone Up3 activity tracker. Its metal contacts line the inside of the Jawbone’s black wrist band, meeting skin so it can monitor the body's H2O levels.

The iPhone's built-in ambient light sensor can help determine if users are getting too little (or too much) sun in a given outing. The Apple Watch also features an ambient light sensor, primarily to adjust the screen's brightness to suit dark or light settings. While it's no ultraviolet sensor, as early rumors suggested, it could still prove similarly useful to broadly keep track of time spent in well-lit environments.

Developing Healthy Apple Users

When it comes to tracking the sun, the current Apple Watch may be somewhat helpful, but it will still have a tough time measuring up to rivals. These competitors include a new crop of ultraviolet-sensing devices, like Tzoa, and smartwatches like Samsung's Gear S. The latter sports a UV sensor and an API (application programming interface), so developers can build apps that hook into it. (See ReadWrite's API explainer.)

That may be true for now, but Apple has only just begun. The company is constantly working on its HealthKit framework, the latest updates for which also include reproductive health features for women.

On the hardware front, Apple may not have produced the super health-monitoring gadget of its dreams just yet. According to The Wall Street Journal, the iPhone maker reportedly wanted to pack its Apple Watch with loads more sensors, but those plans were stymied by a range of issues—from glitchy, inconsistent hardware to overly complicated systems, to say nothing of facing approvals from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They may be typical challenges for dedicated health devices, but for companies entering this arena for the first time, they can be overwhelming. Even for tech giants as large as Apple.

Not that it has given up. The company's ongoing development on HealthKit and the debut of its medical research project, ResearchKit, suggest Apple's not ready to abandon its high-minded health aspirations. It's still early days for the device, as well as those initiatives. For the foreseeable future, the company will certainly continue inching its way toward its ultimate goal: turning us all into optimally healthy humans, with many more years of Apple usage ahead of us.

By now, the notion of a work-optimized iPad Pro is a cliché, with rumors about Apple's not-quite-a-laptop having circulated for years. But with Monday’s reveal of new features coming to iOS 9-powered Apple tablets, the long-awaited release of the iPad Pro finally seems more like inevitability than fantasy.

The company certainly wants to give its prized tablet a boost, considering the device's slumping sales. Apparently, Apple sees productivity features as just the thing to reinvigorate it.

At the company's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address on Monday, Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, showed off new additions to the iPad’s repertoire that seem specifically designed to help users get more done with the device. If that's the mentality going into the product category, it may be paving the way for a work-friendly tablet to finally hit the market before long.

Hard Evidence In Software

At its keynote, Apple highlighted its iPads by calling these times the "post-PC era"—despite the fact that the company still makes more from its computers than its tablets. But the company seems to want to sell its iPads as work devices, sending out a new wave of software changes to support that notion.

The tablet's QuickType keyboard has a new Shortcut Bar that includes easy access to copying and pasting tools, while iOS 9 will also feature shortcut support on external keyboards. Previously, Apple has emphasized the iPad’s status as a fun consumption machine. That it would point to keyboard support seems to indicate it has plans for a physical keyboard of its own.

Keyboard shortcuts will help users get more work done on an iPad...or an iPad Pro.

Apple also just announced mouse pointers for the iPad. Users just move two fingers along the virtual keyboard, and a cursor will appear, making text editing and selection much easier.

Most importantly, Apple unveiled new same screen multitasking features called Split View and Slide Over. Slide Over lets users swipe in from the side of the iPad screen to open up a new app while pushing an already-open app into the background. Both are viewable on the screen at the same time, but only one is usable. It’s a nice addition that will hit all iOS 9 compatible iPads.

Split View, however, is the real star. It allows for two apps to be open and usable on the screen at the same time. It’s not revolutionary as far as computers in general are concerned, but it's a first for the iPad. Tellingly, Split View is only available in the iPad Air 2. Likely, whatever new iPads we see in the fall of 2015 will also boast Split View.

The new Split View for iPad suggests that an iPad Pro may be on the way.

The changes seem to refocus the iPad for getting work done. Working on an iPad has been possible before, but it’s never been particularly easy because of the tablet's previously simplistic interface.

A New Competitor Surfaces

New software isn’t the only reason Apple may release an iPad Pro. In March, Microsoft revealed the Surface 3, a modestly-powered tablet that’s priced against the iPad, and runs full Windows. It will be even more powerful with the ability to run universal Windows apps once Windows 10 drops in July.

The Surface 3 is Microsoft's answer to the iPad: an affordable, powerful-enough tablet that can imitate a computer if it wants to.

Windows 10 will also transform Microsoft’s mobile devices into productivity powerhouses, as the forthcoming Continuum feature will adjust a device’s UI (user interface) depending on the context. If you plug a phone running Windows 10 Mobile into a monitor with a keyboard and mouse, suddenly you’ve got a full Windows PC you can fit in your pocket.

Between Microsoft’s transforming devices and the overwhelming number of cheap, functional Android devices out there, Apple must offer more practical options than its overpriced 2015 Macbook, if it hopes to appeal to the mobile workforce. A reasonably priced iPad Pro—with a bigger display, a keyboard, and more processing power and storage—would do nicely. Perhaps this fall.

At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, executive Craig Federighi offered up tons of announcements about changes heading to iPhones and iPads with iOS 9—namely, smarter voice features and updates designed to improve the experience of making apps and using them.

The new version of the company's mobile software enters the developer preview phase Monday, followed by the public beta stage in July and the official roll-out this fall. Here's what we can expect.

Siri Smartens Up

According to Federighi, Siri is getting a lot more intelligent. The well-coiffed exec showed off a demo of Apple’s digital assistant understanding natural language, letting users speak in their own words to get meaningful responses. So if you’re reading an email and ask your device to “remind me about this when I get home,” Siri will know exactly what “this” is, and will set the reminder to ping you once you get to your place.

Talk to Siri, and she'll listen.

Siri is also going to be more “proactive”: The feature can queue up audiobooks when you get into your car, give you reminders about when to leave for appointments based on traffic, and play music as soon as you plug in your headphones. Siri will also auto-add events you receive in your email to your calendar, and can search your emails for possible caller ID suggestions, when calls from an unknown number come in.

Android users will find some of these tricks familiar, since Google Now has offered many similar features. However, Google Now's predictive abilities have been rather hit or miss. Apple clearly thinks it can do perform better, but the real proof will come this fall, when the public gets to put the new and supposedly improved Siri through its paces.

And Apple’s search API and deep linking features round out how much smarter iOS 9 will be overall. With Siri and more comprehensive Spotlight searches, users will be able to speak or type search terms to uncover results from the Web, from Apple's services or deep within supporting third-party apps.

New Apple Pay Powers

The tap-to-pay feature that iPhoners love to use, Apple Pay, is also getting a bit fancier.

Jennifer Bailey, one of two female executives Apple put on stage Monday, explained more stores new stores will start accepting Apple Pay. To help speed the initiative further, the company joined forces with Square to produce a new Apple Pay-supporting Square reader. The hardware unit—which will come equipped with the Near Field Communication short-range wireless technology that enables the tap-to-pay action—could make it easier for a broad range of brick-and-mortar retailers to join the Apple Pay fold. Square will shell out initially for 250,000 free readers, but the later cost—at $49—still comes in at a mom-and-pop shop-friendly price tag, as does the 2.75% transaction fee.

Notes, Maps, News, and Swift

Apple is taking on other companies’ services in a few other areas, too, imitating Google’s Keep app with Notes, making improvements to its Maps app, and rendering Flipboard useless via a redesigned News app, which seems to replace the old Newsstand app.

Susan Prescott explains the new News app on iOS 9.

Notes has a new checklist feature, and can support sketches and drawings, giving a new way for users to keep track of their thoughts and ideas. Meanwhile, the Maps app finally offers public transit directions. Previously, the app kicked users out to other third-party apps for bus and train navigation. Now, Maps will directly support transit features, including “multi-modal routing,” so users can select different forms of public transportation, when necessary.

As for News—stop me if you’ve heard this one—users will choose publications and topics, and the new app will form a list based on those selections.

These changes amount to more robust features for Apple's homegrown apps, but third-party developers haven't been left out of the loop. In fact, Apple just open-sourced the second version of its Swift programming language, giving outside app makers access to all of Swift 2's inner workings and the opportunity to participate in its evolution. They'll also get a suite of improved development and testing tools, to make app creation better and faster: Developers can use Swift 2 to make apps for Mac OS X as well, or use the new Linux versions of the software tools, which won't require the use of an Apple gadget just to make apps for Apple's platforms.

The iPad Is A Computer Now

The QuickType keyboard has an amazing improvement that turns your iPad into a trackpad. By using a two-finger gesture on the virtual keyboard, users will be able to bring up a cursor for easier selection on-screen. It’s a brilliant tweak that’ll make the iPad much more friendly for productivity.

The iPad's new Slide Over feature

After being rumored for over a year, split-screen multitasking has finally come to the iPad—though, not every iPad, unfortunately. Federighi showed off two new multitasking features that join the app switcher that has lived on iPads for a while. Slide Over allows users to swipe in from the side and open a second app, while the first app goes dark in the background. That feature’s coming to all iPads that can run iOS 9. It’s a welcome addition to make the iPad much more useable, at least for those devices that can run it.

The Split View multitasking feature is exclusive to the iPad Air 2, much to older iPad owners' chagrin.

Split View might be even better. The feature allows two apps to remain open on the screen at the same time. It looks a whole lot like Microsoft's Snap feature, which has been a staple of PCs since Windows 7 (as well as Samsung and LG’s same screen multitasking on some of their Android handsets). Unfortunately, Apple is only bringing Split View to the iPad Air 2.

One More Thing…

This year, Tim Cook’s “One more thing”—the catch phrase predecessor Steve Jobs was known for—didn't relate to a new hardware announcement. Rumors ran high at one point that Apple would introduce a new, revamped Apple TV, but last-minute reports nixed that notion. Instead, Cook gave us Apple Music.

The company’s new music streaming service seems to take a lot of old ideas and mix in a few new ones. Think of it as a cross between Spotify, Twitter, YouTube, and Rdio, all in one app.

For starters, Apple Music will pick up where the old Beats Music left off, creating individualized playlists created by human beings. But that also smacks of the Google-owned Songza service. Both offer playlists based on genre and activity, though Apple Music benefits from the wider breadth of its music catalogue. A new Connect feature will let users follow their favorite artists and check out behind-the-scenes content about the music creation or touring process.

Tony Cue croons about Apple Music.

Finally, Beats One is a 24/7 music streaming service that broadcasts out of New York, Los Angeles, and London, presumably with exclusive content. All of this can be yours for $10 a month, or $15 for a six-person family subscription. The first three months of the service will cost nothing when it launches on June 30 on iOS devices. Somewhat surprisingly, it will hit Windows and Android in fall 2015.

Speaking personally, as far as “one more things” go, Apple Music was a bit underwhelming, considering that the features have been available in one form or another elsewhere. The key, of course, will be Apple’s deals. For instance, when Beyoncé released a new album exclusively on iTunes in late 2013, it showed how the iPhone maker could generate new, exciting interest in its music platform.

Features can only do so much to draw in users; ultimately, it's the catalog that matters. Apple's library is vast, as is its reach. If it tempts popular artists to offer exclusive content that can’t be found anywhere else, Apple Music could be a smash. (In that regard, Jimmy Iovine could be pivotal.) If not, it might as well get in line behind Samsung's Milk Music on the growing list of music streaming services no one cares much about.

On Monday, at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, the closed-off Apple Watch cracked open a little wider for developers, who will now get to build truly native apps that take full advantage of the wrist device's hardware features.

As the company noted, it has been six weeks since the wearable device’s launch, and with Apple’s Kevin Lynch taking the wraps off the new smartwatch operating system, known now as WatchOS, the device’s software evolution appears to be racing forward.

Time To Go All In

Until now, the Apple Watch offered what more or less amounted to a jazzed-up, extended interface for iPhone apps. Software primarily ran on a paired iPhone connected to the watch. With a fairly limited set of apps, it was hard for Apple to really make a convincing case for its new device. Even now, people still aren’t quite sure what they’re supposed to use it for, or how the pricey device can improve the way they do things.

With WatchOS 2, developers will be able to create apps that operate directly on the watch. Along with Wi-Fi support, the way has been paved for more independent features that may not require the iPhone’s presence at all. That, and other improvements, opens up much more room for developers to come up with creative uses.

App makers will get access to the watch’s microphone, to catch audio so they can pipe it into their apps, as well as its little speaker to play audio. The device can even play short videos, if need be.

Fitness apps also get access to sensors and HealthKit directly on the watch, which could give their apps a real boost, since they can collect presumably more accurate heart rate and other health or data.

They can also jack into the accelerometer, as well as the device's Taptic Engine—Apple's really fancy name for the watch's buzzer which sends vibrations down your arm. Those features could be useful for workouts, detecting when you've completed a move and alerting you to what's next.

The most interesting change Apple has made is to the watch's display—and the way developers can access it.

Apple previously reserved "complications," a term borrowed from the watch industry which Apple uses to describe bits of information that float across the watch's surface. Now developers will be able to determine and offer their own complications.

Users will be able to navigate them with the Digital Crown dial, rolling through them to move forward chronologically.

That digital time-trip feature is called Time Travel, and its appearance is a bit of a surprise. According to a Wired story earlier this year, the company considered a chronological approach similar to Pebble Time, but then ditched the notion.

In one section, the Wired story reveals that previous versions of the Apple Watch software took a chronological approach, setting information in a timeline. But the concept was tossed aside early on for Short Looks, which prioritizes info based on whether or not you engage with it, and Glances, which offer a unified place for fast news and updates.

Guess the company changed its mind.

Some other features:

New watch faces: Includes new Photo Album face and a new 24-hour Time-Lapse face.

New nightstand mode: If you don’t wear your Watch to bed, then you’ll be able to stash it on your bedside, where it can act as your alarm clock. The face will show an indicator for the remaining battery level and the time.

Digital Touch sketches in color: Now you’re not stuck with just a hue or two for your caveman drawings, but you can get your micro Da Vinci on (that is, if you’re a quick draw. Those sketches do fade away rather fast).

Other updates hitting our wrists soon:

Email replies

FaceTime Audio calls

iOS 9 updates: Includes Apple Pay support for gift and loyalty cards, Siri-powered Maps on the watch complete with transit directions

Native fitness apps with Siri: Users can start workouts by speaking to their wrists, no manual launching of apps necessary

Siri support for Glances, even those that aren’t already installed

The free developer beta of WatchOS 2 is available today, with a wider software release coming later in the fall.

The next version of Apple's Mac OS X is nearly here, and has been dubbed, in a departure from cat names and national parks, "El Capitan."

Presented by Apple executive Craig Federighi at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco Monday, the new OS X features a number of small but noticeable tweaks to things, improvements to Safari, and better support for game developers.

Starting with El Capitan, Safari will support "pinned" websites, which functions like having a bookmarks bar near the top, not unlike some other browsers. Safari will also allow users to mute tabs without having to find the offending ad or video (also not unlike some other browsers).

El Capitan also improves other persistent parts of Apple's OS like Mission Control, with smoother navigation, and Mail, with more dynamic controls. It offers better app and window management. Different applications can be dragged into their own distinct desktops or more easily lined up next to each other.

Federighi also highlighted the speed of El Capitan, saying that apps open 1.4 times faster, PDF files open four times faster, and app switches happen twice as fast.

The new OS X also brings Metal out of iOS, which offers more efficient rendering for games. As a result, game developers may be more motivated to build Mac games.

According to Federighi, a beta version of El Capitan is currently available to developers, and a consumer beta begins in July. El Capitan get pushed out as a free update in September.

With the growth of Apple Pay and new features like store cards and rewards points, Passbook, the iOS app where Apple's payments features have lived, is getting retired in favor of a new Apple Wallet app.

Apple executives announced the retirement of Passbook at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday.

What does it mean that Passbook is now Wallet? It means that Apple is going all-in on payments following the launch of Apple Pay last fall. "Passbook" represented a tentativeness on Apple's part. It was the name for an app that held coupons, tickets, and rewards cards—but not cash or credit cards, as a wallet might.

The arrival of Apple Pay changed that, of course. So the Passbook name seemed increasingly out of place.

Apple Wallet is definitely getting closer. Jennifer Bailey, the company's vice president of online store, announced that Apple Pay will be accepted at a million US locations and 250,000 locations in the UK when it launches there in July.

Bailey also confirmed that Square, which had previously announced its intention to support Apple Pay, will be coming out with an Apple Pay-compatible reader in the fall. She briefly showed a picture of the device, which, with its puck-like rectangular shape and rounded corners, looks not unlike a white Apple TV or a scaled-up version of Square's original card swiper.

The new search API (application programming interface) will offer developers deep linking, and their users will be able to more easily conjure search results from within third-party apps with a single tap.

We now have an API for search. So now when a user performs a search, we can find content behind the apps they have installed on the device, and pull those up in results. And when they tap, they’re deep linked directly into the application. We even provide a convenient back link so they can get right back to their search results. We think these kinds of intelligence features really make a huge difference in your experience in iOS.

The search API is a major move for developers. Now, when users enter terms into their iPhones or iPads, supporting apps will be able to return relevant results. In short, that takes the burden off of users to figure out what the best app might be to find what they’re looking for. Now, iOS 9 and Siri will do the heavy lifting there.

Deep linked, on-device content delivered via the new search API, along with the integrated back button to return users to their search.

Even better, the new deep linking feature will allow users to stay focused on the task at hand. They won’t have to abandon their search to open up separate apps to access the content they’re looking for. The deep link feature will bring them right to the correct apps and content, and the integrated “back” feature brings them back to their searches so they can stay focused on what they’re looking for.

The first forty minutes of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference stayed on the race-and-gender script past events have established, with one white man, Apple CEO Tim Cook, handing off to another white man, Apple executive Craig Federighi, who handed it off to another white man, Billy Bramer of Epic Games.

And sure enough, he delivered, with Federighi introducing his colleague Jennifer Bailey, who runs Apple Pay. Bailey walked through a number of announcements, from the UK launch of Apple Pay to partnerships with Pinterest and Square, that—had Apple stayed on a script which strictly limited which executives got stage time—might have been presented by executives like marketing chief Phil Schiller.

A Stage Built By Women

Women like Prescott and Bailey have been instrumental in building the products Apple has showed off on stage. Until 2015, though, they weren't the ones talking about them in public.

Their inclusion comes after a long history of putting women on the sidelines of the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple's most important annual event for app makers and other technologists building on top of the company's hardware and software platforms.

ReadWrite has been vigilant in noting the poor representation of women on stage at Apple events, which goes back decades.

"I think it's our fault — 'our' meaning the whole tech community," Cook told Mashable Sunday. "I think in general we haven't done enough to reach out and show young women that it's cool to do it and how much fun it can be."

Apple's WWDC event is great fun. And with finally more than just a token woman or two speaking, women can finally picture themselves on Apple's big stage.

Less than 48 hours after putting out a call to action to its supporters, Pebble has apparently convinced Apple to move its new smartwatch apps onto the App Store.

The smartwatch maker posted an update on its Kickstarter page for the Pebble Time on Friday to share the good news—and to thank its supporters for letting Apple know that they’d sure like to have access to Pebble’s apps.

“It’s thanks to you, the one-million-and-growing community of Pebble users, developers, and fans that Pebble Time Watch is on the App Store today,” reads the update. “You carried this torch across the finish line.”

Pebble went as far as recommending that iPhone users borrow a friend's Android phone to set up their Pebble with basic watchfaces and apps that didn't rely on a smartphone connection.

Neither Apple nor Pebble have responded to inquiries about the reasons for the delay.

Now that the issue is cleared up—for the moment, anyway—Pebble was quick to show gratitude to Apple for taking care of Pebble-owning iPhoners:

“We thank Apple for honoring the people who love both their Pebble watches and Apple devices. Apple’s attentiveness to the community means iOS Pebblers with iPhones can now enjoy both their Kickstarter rewards and Pebble’s awesome iOS-compatible apps. We’re glad to have Apple be a part of Pebble’s journey then, now, and into the future.”

This was not the first time Apple seems to have taken issue with Pebble and its developer community. Pebble app developers reported incidents of App Store approval delays or rejections in April and May. Pebble has characterized those episodes as "misunderstandings."

The latest delay, which hit Pebble's own app, raises questions. Will Pebble have to rally its community to pester Apple every time it updates its apps?

Or, if fault lay with Pebble and its app submission, say, because of some technical flaw which violated Apple's platform rules, who's to say another delay like this won't happen again soon? If that was the cause, though, it seems strange that Apple and Pebble wouldn't come out and say as much.

Until both companies open up about what led to these snags and give us real reason to believe they won't happen again, iPhone-using Pebble owners face an uncertain future.

It’s happened again: Apple is taking its sweet time to approve the latest versions of Pebble’s new smartwatch apps, which are essential to the launch of its new Pebble Time line.

Though Pebble Time units started shipping last week to backers who preordered the device on Kickstarter, iPhone-using customers won't be able to connect their new Pebbles to their smartphones without the new app.

The holdup has gotten so bad that Pebble sent an email to its backers on Wednesday to explain the situation, and to solicit them for help convincing Apple to stop holding the new app hostage:

We’re sure Apple, like Pebble, loves its fans and is responsive to feedback. Together, we can kindly express our desire to see the AppStore #FreeOurPebbleTime with a speedy approval of Pebble Time Watch for iPhone.

The Pebble Timeline

According to the email, Apple approved the Pebble Time Watch management app on May 18, only to reject an updated version of the app a few days later on May 22. Pebble has resubmitted the app, and has been waiting for approval since then—about two weeks as of this writing. (For technical reasons that have to do with how Apple operates the App Store, Pebble can't just have customers use the earlier version.)

As to what led Apple to reject the app remains a mystery, as does the reason for the current holdup. Meanwhile, Apple has also been sitting on approval of an update to the original Pebble app since April 21. Now, over 40 days later, Pebble has asked its backers to start asking Apple via the App Store support page, Twitter, and Facebook to approve the apps already.

In the meantime, Pebble has a recommendation for iPhone users who receive their Pebble Time units while the app is still pending. They ought to make a phone call—to their Android phone-using friends:

While waiting for the iPhone app, iOS backers may borrow an Android device from friends or family to perform initial setup, add cool watchfaces, or install standalone apps that don’t require a paired smartphone.

I’ve reached out to both Pebble and Apple for more information about the situation, and will update this post should I hear back.

A History Of Pebble Prejudice

This is far from the first time Apple has expressed tacit disapproval of the Pebble. In fact, two different Pebble app developers in April and May reported having app updates rejected for expressing Pebble support in their metadata. Those rejections were later overturned, with an Apple spokesperson saying that the apps were rejected in error. However, it’s difficult not to see a trend forming here.

Pebble founder and CEO Eric Migicovsky speaking his mind on Apple's lack of openness at 2015's Wearable World Congress in San Francisco.

[…] it’s kind of a time for these entrenched, kind of old school, mobile-generation [companies] to make sure that they’re keeping a fair and open environment for newcomers who are building on top of these platforms.

It would be crazy to think of Apple blocking an app like Misfit, or Jawbone, or Fitbit even because they make products that compete with the Apple Watch.

Migicovsky made those remarks on May 19, only a day after Apple approved the initial Pebble Time Watch app—at a time, in other words, when Apple seemed to be behaving as Migicovsky thought it should.

While it’s hard to imagine the subsequent rejection of the app’s update could be related to Migicovsky’s comments at Wearable World Congress, the coincidental timing seems striking.

The first batch of HomeKit-certified devices are here, exactly one year after Apple announced the smarthome protocol at its Worldwide Developers Conference in 2014. While nearly every smarthome product has offered some form of iOS compatibility in the form of a third-party app, these new devices stand apart because they communicate through Apple’s own software.

With that comes deep, intuitive voice-based controls via Siri, and the potential for developers to take advantage of the well of data flowing through users’ iOS devices.

No Place Like HomeKit

In May, a report on Fortune surfaced claiming that Apple's first HomeKit products would be pushed back to August or September, citing development problems that slowed the company's plans. However, whatever problems Apple may have faced in bringing HomeKit to the world were either exaggerated or unfounded entirely.

A post published on MacRumors Tuesday reports that five companies have announced devices certified for use with HomeKit so far: Lutron, iHome, Elgato, Ecobee, and Insteon. The products from those companies run the gamut, ranging from Wi-Fi connected lighting and thermostats, to more broadly focused “smartplugs” and complete home sensors. As it stands, the products made by Lutron, iHome, and Elgato are available for preorder starting Tuesday, while Ecobee and Insteon’s devices will be ready to buy a little bit later this year.

The biggest selling point of devices made to work with HomeKit is their integration with Apple’s personal digital assistant, Siri. Users will be able to ask Siri to check and control lights in other rooms in the house, or to simply tell Siri that it’s “time for bed,” prompting the digital pixie to power down your house’s connected devices and lock the doors—assuming, of course, you’ve installed HomeKit-approved smartlocks.

Without this certification logo, a smarthome device won't be HomeKit compatible.

HomeKit’s arrival also raises a few questions. Will other already-established smarthome device makers offer new versions that are HomeKit compliant? Or will older devices be made compatible with an over-the-air firmware update?

Philips’ Hue smartlight system, for instance, is compatible with both Android and iOS devices via a Philips-made app. Connecting a home’s Hue system with Siri requires some more technological workarounds, like relying on IFTTT or diving into Hue’s API and writing a brand new program. Needless to say, most users would probably prefer that Philips simply find a way to connect devices with HomeKit directly.

Chat Rooms

In the meantime, the full extent of HomeKit’s potential is still something of a mystery. The latest WWDC is right around the corner, scheduled for June 8, at which point we’ll likely see HomeKit put into action on stage. We’re also likely to hear plenty more details and possibilities for the smarthome protocol; up to this point, Apple’s been pretty vague about what HomeKit will and won’t do, so some clarity would be welcome.

Most interestingly, however, is how other developers might take advantage of the wealth of data HomeKit promises. Previously, smarthome products talked to users’ smartphones or tablets via different apps—HomeKit ensures they’re all speaking the same language. Giving these devices a common tongue means other developers will soon be able to create apps and services that can join the conversation.

Apple, as is typical, had very little to say on the purchase, and the terms have not been disclosed.

Metaio began as a project inside Volkswagen in 2003 to build a platform for augmented-reality experiences. It later spun out of the German automaker. One of the projects the firm has worked on in the past is a showroom app for Ferrari that lets users overlay various virtual graphics on top of the cars in front of them.

The San Francisco-based firm had given its customers cause for concern after canceling its user conference and disabling its Twitter accounts. Now the reason for that disruption has been revealed.

With Metaio boasting around a thousand customers and 150,000 users across 30 countries, Apple is getting some serious expertise with its purchase. Metaio had previously received funding from Atlantic Bridge and Westcott.

Augmented And Virtual Realities

Augmented reality (where digital graphics are layered over the real world) and virtual reality (where an entirely digital world is created) are distinctly different technologies, though they have a lot in common.

Google Glass and HoloLens offer augmented reality (AR); devices like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive are in the virtual reality (VR) camp. AR equipment has to do more work in terms of identifying what's in front of the user and calculating distances and areas.

A demo video shows Metaio software running on the Epson Moverio, a Glass-style device. With the technology advancing so quickly, Apple has little choice but to get involved.

Interesting though this acquisition is, it's hardly a big reveal: Apple was awarded a patent for a head-mounted VR display back in February, and the iOS 9 version of Maps is rumored to include an augmented reality element, enabling users to point their iPhones at a scene and see nearby places of interest.

We don't know whether Apple will eventually produce some kind of headset of its own or simply develop software to put inside iOS, but our augmented and virtual realities are approaching faster than you might think.

iOS already has its own personal assistant app in the form of Siri, but it seems Apple wants a more direct competitor to Google Now: 9to5Mac reports that a new service called Proactive is on the way.

With deep ties to Siri, Contacts, Calendar, Passbook and third-party apps, Proactive would reportedly surface timely and relevant information in the same way that Google Now does. This could be hugely useful on the Apple Watch as well as the iPhone and iPad.

While Google Now and Siri have several features in common, Apple's app concentrates on controlling devices and running searches using voice input. Google Now focuses more on being an intelligent assistant, mining collected location, search and email data to automatically show alerts (like flight delays) when they're needed.

And that appears to be what Proactive is targeting.

"Proactive will automatically provide timely information based on the user's data and device usage patterns, but will respect the user's privacy preferences, according to sources familiar with Apple's plans," says 9to5Mac.

The roots of Proactive can be traced back to Apple's 2013 acquisition of personal assistant app Cue, which enabled users to "know what's next" based on calendar and email information. With the notification and search capabilities inside iOS growing, Proactive is a logical next step.

Battle Of The Digital Assistants

Cortana on Android.

Google Now has become the major component of stock Android—the unmodified version of Android that Google is increasingly pushing on phone makers—and is available on iOS devices and inside the Chrome browser too. With Microsoft's Cortana assistant spreading out to Windows 10, iOS and Android, it's time for Apple to make a move.

Siri has always been seen as Apple's Cortana or Apple's Google Now, but it lacks the smart, pre-emptive elements found in Microsoft and Google's products. Proactive would plug that gap—9to5Mac says it will show estimated travel times to scheduled events in exactly the same way that Google Now does.

It's another sign of the growing importance of these digital assistants and the ecosystems they tap into: Will we be choosing our next phones based on the digital assistant we get on best with? Or the one that knows most about us from our emails and searches?

9to5Mac says Proactive could even rearrange apps based on the time of day and usage patterns, and that third-party app integration will be an important element of the new service. If Proactive arrives with iOS 9, as is expected, we'll be hearing about it at WWDC.

We'll have to wait and see just how comprehensive the new app ends up being, and how well it competes with Google Now and Cortana. One thing we can predict with a good degree of certainty: It will only be available on Apple's platforms.

If true, the move, which would require Force Touch-capable displays going into the new Apple smartphone and tablet, could wind up being limited to the company's homegrown features only. But the site seems convinced that Apple will give app makers access to the feature—which could change the way we interact with games and other iPhone apps.

Show Of Force

Force Touch is essentially a pressure-sensitive twist on the touch-based gestures that have become standard on trackpads and smart-device displays. Instead of merely touching or pressing to hold an icon, button or other element on the screen, people can change the weight of their taps to perform different actions on their displays.

An Apple Support page offers all kinds of examples of how to use Force "click" on the new Macbook, with options ranging from quick-editing a file’s name, or seeing a Maps preview of an address or location.

The feature also lets you know when it registers the input using "haptic feedback," or small vibrations that alert you when something happens. Those can be simple buzzes that acknowledge a Force Touch entry, or a shake that tells you when you've reached the end of an iMovie clip.

New Macbook owners have more options for how they want to set up Force Touch

The addition of pressure-sensitive touches and taps may not sound like a big deal on the face of it. But there are no shortage to the ways developers might take advantage of the new feature. For proof, we can look back to the year 2000, when Sony released the PlayStation 2 game console and its controller with pressure-sensitive buttons.

In the console’s flagship racing title, Gran Turismo 4, players could more subtly apply gas or brakes to their cars depending on how hard they pushed each button. Other games like Metal Gear Solid 2 and MLB the Show offered improvements to gameplay based on similar touch features. However, by the time the PlayStation 4 came out, Sony had dropped pressure-sensitive buttons.

The DualShock 3 was the second PlayStation controller to feature pressure-sensitive buttons. Sony dropped the feature for the PS4's gamepad, however.

Apple, on the other hand, is not likely to drop Force Touch anytime soon, especially since it just spread the feature across its device categories.

Use The Force, Devs

With straight taps—read: without Force Touch—the experience is pretty binary. You’re either touching the screen, or you’re holding your finger on the screen. Adding varying degrees of pressure means that developers can start thinking of more creative ways to connect users with their software.

If iOS 9 delivers the feature, as rumored, then it could bring a shift in the fundamental ways we experience apps. Take game apps, for instance. An iPhone user might find playing a baseball game on a Force Touch-equipped iPad more engaging, since they could control the strength at which they hit the ball. Players could change the speed of their pitches based on how hard they touch the screen.

Force Touch could also open up new ways for developers to take advantage of the iPhone’s small screen real estate. If you're trying to move spreadsheet items around, a Force Touch could present more options than a simple tap. Developers could add new contextual menu options, and make other features more accessible, all based on how hard people hit their screens.

Apple may or may not reveal its intentions next month, when it shows off iOS 9 at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. If the company sticks with its typical pattern, the new iPhones (likely named the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus) may not offer very many hardware changes, so new Force Touch hardware might be the star of the show during its fall press event. The company may not be willing to tip that ahead of time, even to show off the new software tools that would go along with it.

Then again, Apple may want to tempt them with it sooner rather than later, if it wants developers to "use the Force."

Three years ago, CEO Tim Cook gave Ive dominion over Apple’s mobile software interfaces and hardware design. The new responsibilities gave him control over the way the company’s devices looked and behaved, from the inside out. Now, according to The Telegraph, he will travel (possibly back to his native England), leaving his managerial and administrative responsibilities split between two Apple staffers. Reportedly, Ive’s new assignment will have him working with London's Foster and Partners to design Apple's Spaceship Campus 2 and weighing in on the growing Apple Retail Stores springing up worldwide.

Despite the fancier title, the new designation seems like a goodbye, which is notable because Ive always represented the "old guard," a remaining legacy of Steve Jobs’ rule at Apple. Sentimentality aside, though, the larger concern is over what the move means to Apple devices.

Thanks For Everything, Sir Jony

When the company shunted software chief Scott Forstall aside in 2012, it essentially added those duties to Ive’s plate. The changes were positioned as the company marrying its software and hardware efforts, which seems to have paid off. Apple just can’t stop bragging about its monster iPhone sales. From its initial October to December timeframe, iPhone shipments amounted to 74.5 million units, up 46% against a year earlier.

Now we’re on the precipice of what looks like a divorce between Apple’s hardware and software development, at least when it comes to the daily nuts and bolts. Effective July 1, Alan Dye will become VP of UI design, and Richard Howarth moves into the VP of industrial design role.

Ive supposedly won't step completely back, according to what appears to be an Apple internal memo from Cook to staffers about the change. From 9to5Mac:

His new role is a reflection of the scope of work he has been doing at Apple for some time. Jony’s design responsibilities have expanded from hardware and, more recently, software UI to the look and feel of Apple retail stores, our new campus in Cupertino, product packaging and many other parts of our company...

As Chief Design Officer, Jony will remain responsible for all of our design, focusing entirely on current design projects, new ideas and future initiatives. On July 1, he will hand off his day-to-day managerial responsibilities of ID and UI to Richard Howarth, our new vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, our new vice president of User Interface Design.

Translation: Ive will still weigh in on the broad strokes on both sides. But it won't be his hands guiding and managing daily development. (Update: Perhaps not. The two newly minted VPs will report to Cook instead, not Ive. See below.)

The impact of this re-shuffling likely won't show up right away, at least not for the iPhone 6S (or whatever the new model will be called) or for the next version of iOS that Apple will showcase next month at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Those changes, if any, will likely materialize in the company’s following product development cycle.

The only thing we might be able to count on in the short term is that Dye and Howarth will probably take on bigger roles at the company’s WWDC keynote. We'll see then if they can wax as breathlessly poetic about Apple products.

Photo courtesy of Apple

Update July 3, 2015: Looks like Ive won't manage Dye and Howarth directly after all. According to their new bios, notes Daring Fireball's John Gruber, they will report to CEO Tim Cook—adding fuel to the notion that Ive really may be stepping back.

The rumors were true: Microsoft has confirmed that Cortana is coming to iOS and Android later this year. Most of the voice assistant's functionality will be available on Apple and Google's platforms, though users won't be able to launch apps or toggle settings as they can on Windows Phone.

For anyone with more than a passing interest in Microsoft's journey under CEO Satya Nadella, the move won't be a surprise. The Redmond firm has been busy focusing on getting its mobile apps available on all platforms (such as its flagship Office suite), and making Windows 10 work better across computers, smartphones, tablets and even game consoles.

The new Cortana releases tie into a newly unveiled Phone Assistant app for Windows 10, which aims to make using the desktop software with iOS and Android devices easier.

Cortana Grows Up And Moves Out

To take on Google Now and Apple's Siri, Microsoft has been focusing on Cortana as an integral part of the Windows 10 operating system (OS), due to arrive this summer. The company wants to offer ubiquitous access, so it plans on bringing the assistant to desktops, laptops, the Xbox One, Windows 10 Mobile devices and even competing platforms.

Cortana on iOS and Android will recognize who you are, sync your notebooks across devices, and display notifications about reminders and updates. You'll be able to tap into its search capabilities and access anything that's available in the cloud (like results from your favorite sports team).

Aside from the ability to launch specific apps or toggle device settings with your voice (something Apple and Google doesn't allow), the experience will be much the same as it is on Windows Phone.

The Android Cortana app is scheduled for a late June release with the iOS version following "later this year." We still don't have an official release date for Windows 10—July is a good bet—but once it arrives, it should come with decent iOS and Android compatibility out of the box.

Talking Strategy

Bringing Cortana to competing platforms looks directly opposed to Apple's strategy. (Good luck trying to get your Android or Windows Phone device talking happily to a Mac.) But it's a common sense approach when you've got a sliver of the mobile phone market—some 3.8 percent in the US according to the latest figures.

So far, Windows 10 looks like Microsoft's best shot at gaining ground, as a growing number of people seem intrigued enough to at least try out the preview version. The company obviously wants to attract new users, while giving the initiated a reason to stay.

As Google Chrome proves, getting your software on your competitors' platforms can bring some benefits. Microsoft is likely crossing its fingers, hoping that embracing iOS and Android will draw users towards Windows. But tech maker beware: At the same time, the strategy could backfire, ensuring Windows is less vital to Microsoft's overall success.

Since Apple announced its HomeKit smart home initiative last year, it's been mostly quiet about just how iPhones and other Apple gadgets will wrangle those connected devices. Now, however, the company may have a fancy new app in the works—complete with virtual rooms, a clever and apparently easy-to-grasp metaphor for running a smart home.

Apple’s approach, according to a 9to5Mac report, will be to launch a new "Home" app for controlling smart-home gadgets—think smart locks, sensors, garage openers, thermostats, lights, security cameras and other connected appliances. The Home app will sort gadgets by function and location into a visual arrangement of virtual rooms

The goal is to simplify the otherwise bewildering task of finding, adding and controlling smart devices and appliances from Apple and other companies.

Smart homes are quite likely to be collections of disparate gadgets from various manufacturers that need to identify and share information with each other as well as with a controlling "hub." Giving users an intuitive way to grasp what's where and who's doing what is something this industry badly needs.

Here's what Apple's take supposedly looks like.

The Kit And Kaboodle

When it comes to smart home systems, interfaces matter. Samsung’s still relatively new SmartThings division has a powerful, though complex, mobile app that it has been trying to simplify for users. Revolv, now owned by Google’s Nest division, used to offer an app with simple setup and management features, using graphical representations to symbolize connections to devices.

Apple's version might be even easier. The app, which supposedly sports a house icon against a dark yellow background, reportedly connects to a user’s Apple TV, using that as a hub or stationary command center for the system. There’s still a big question mark over how well it works, though—the Apple blog says that in its current form, it has only basic, limited features, and so far, only Apple employees have been allowed to take it for a spin.

The new “Home” app—or whatever it will be officially called when it debuts (possibly with iOS 9)—seems like just the sort of thing Apple would want to spotlight at its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote in June. But that's only if the app’s ready for public viewing, which isn't at all certain yet.

As 9to5Mac notes, the app might be too basic and unrefined at this point. Even if it’s not, it might be intended for use solely within Apple’s walls as a testing or development tool.

If the latter is true, then people might manage their "Apple smart home" using their Siri voice assistant to control third-party apps. In essence, that would let people talk to their iPhones, Apple Watches and likely Apple TVs to remote control their home appliances.

Bring It On Home

Either way, Apple will have to pick a path and fairly soon. The tech giant announced its HomeKit framework last year, and it's been losing steam in this area ever since. Rumors of more delays prompted an uncharacteristic Apple response in which it publicly promised that its first gadgets to support HomeKit will debut next month.

When they arrive, users will have to have something with which to manage them. Otherwise, it might start looking like Apple bit off more than it could chew in the complicated smart-home arena.

Simplicity is something this area sorely needs, if smart homes are ever going to attract broad interest. Of course, it has to be good, too. Launching an "Apple Maps bad” HomeKit initiative could ding the whole industry. It’s not hard to imagine even Apple loyalists (who are legion) walking away from a crummy experience and thinking, “If even Apple can’t make this work, then no one can.”

If Apple does launch the new Home app soon—and if it works—its new metaphor could go a long way toward helping newcomers understand just why they'd want to equip their homes with connected, smart gadgets. In that way, you can imagine the smart-home industry at large holding its breath as WWDC opens. Next month, we’ll know if it's ready to exhale.

With Google's I/O developer conference around the corner, you can expect the rumors to start coming thick and fast, and The Information has the scoop that the Mountain View company is working on a new OS for the Internet of Things.

It's codenamed "Brillo" for now, though it emerge under the Android brand, reports The Information. It will be able to run on as little as 64MB or 32MB of RAM, with or without a screen.

Those minimum specs explain the need for a whole new OS for the fledgling Internet of Things—these lightweight, low-powered, low-cost devices don't have the processing oomph to run Android or iOS.

The Internet of Things may be a clunky title, but no one has yet come up with a better phrase to describe the smart lightbulbs, doorbells, fridges, washing machines and other gadgets that are rapidly invading the home—all of which need software to operate and get online.

Anyone expecting a clean and open fight to become the dominant software provider is likely to be disappointed. At this point, in fact, the best we can hope for is that the companies' competing formats all decide to play nicely with one another. But where's the profit in that?

Also last week we heard about Qualcomm's "Internet of Everything" strategy, combining both a series of chips as well as a software platform called AllJoyn. The company promised to play nicely with other standards, but—like everyone else—would prefer its own standard to win out.

The most recent runner to declare was Huawei, unveiling its LiteOS operating system only a few days ago. Just 10KB in size, it supports zero configuration, auto-discovery and auto-networking—in other words it just works, as long as you have other LiteOS-compatible equipment at home.

Those are three major moves in the last seven days, on top of initiatives already in progress from Intel, Apple, Microsoft and others. Confused yet? Your smart desk lamp probably will be.

It's still early days to talk about interoperability, with so many systems yet to launch or in the nascent stages of development. Many firms are likely to hedge their bets by supporting multiple partners. Even Apple might have to work with more third-party manufacturers than it usually likes to.

Even for those on the inside, it's difficult to get a handle on this shifting landscape, and it'll be a while before consumers come to know or care about the capabilities of these Internet-of-Things OSes. Right now it's about companies setting their stalls out, and you can expect Google to open the shutters before I/O is out.

When Flextronics Jeannine Sargent took the stage at Wearable World Congress 2015 Wednesday, she came with important advice for entrepreneurs who want to make the next big thing in tech: scale it back a bit.

“I think there’s a lot of opportunity,” she said, addressing the assembled audience at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, “but I think you should proceed with caution.”

Sargent should know. She's not only president for innovation and new ventures at the contract manufacturer, she oversees the company's technology and innovation labs. That includes Lab IX, a a hardware accelerator that aims to help small companies and startups make the leap from concept to reality.

I think giving too much functionality, too soon, to your user base may actually poison them from thinking about how to really take advantage of your new concept. So [take] a staged approach and think about how it’s going to be digested and valued by whoever your target audience is.

In the case of Apple, I think it’s also part of considering the total supply chain of all of the solutions—how are they going to get to market? How are they going to be integrated, both the hardware and the software, so that it’s a robust and resilient system?

Pebble founder and CEO Eric Migicovsky has a message for tech giants like Apple and Google: Keep your platforms open unless you want to crush innovation and disserve your customers.

Here's what Migicovsky said at Wearable World Congress, a San Francisco conference put on by ReadWrite's parent company:

We’re building on top of other people’s platforms. In this world where everything is interconnected, and you see devices like Fitbit, Jawbone, Nest and other connected devices that are using the Android, using the iOS platforms, it’s kind of a time for these entrenched, kind of old school, mobile-generation [companies] to make sure that they’re keeping a fair and open environment for newcomers who are building on top of these platforms.

It would be crazy to think of Apple blocking an app like Misfit, or Jawbone, or Fitbit even because they make products that compete with the Apple Watch.

In the same way you look at products like Nest, and you see that Nest hasn’t bought into [Apple's] HomeKit SDK. Should they be blocked from selling apps or selling their hardware that works with the iPhone? I think it’s crazy to think that. I think it’s an important thing that Apple and Google need to be aware of as we move into the next generation of devices that work with the existing devices that you have.

Some history here. Not that long ago, Apple body-blocked Fitbit by booting it from the Apple Store—perhaps coincidentally after Fitbit declined to sign onto Apple's HealthKit system for sharing health and fitness. There have also been recentreports of Apple's App Store rejecting Pebble apps simply because they explicitly offered support for Pebble—now a competitor with the recently launched Apple Watch.

“There was an issue a couple weeks ago where Apple was misidentifying Pebble apps as being non-compliant,” Migicovsky said. “They fixed that—Apple made a statement to the world that that was a mistake on their part.”

Migicovsky also firmed up his company’s plans to launch the Pebble Time in retail locations this summer, shortly after backers receive the first batch of units to roll off the assembly line. When exactly we might see that happen, however, is still a mystery. I’ve reached out to Pebble for more clarification and will update this post if I hear back.

Thanks to the Wall Street Journal, we now know that Apple really was working on its own television set before it ditched the idea over a year ago. The project got shelved, Gene Munster has said his mea culpa, and we can all move on.

It puts a different perspective on the tech rumors of today: Even when they're right they can be wrong. In other words, speculation about an upcoming product might be spot on, but that doesn't necessarily mean it'll ever see the light of day. Apple Car, anyone?

The Simple Reasons Apple Bailed

In retrospect, it's not difficult to see why Apple canned its idea for a TV set to call its own. As one commenter at 9to5Mac put it:

As expensive as they are, TV screens are a commodity. Selling different sizes and features would be a nightmare, and so would lugging one into the Genius Bar for warranty support.

In other words, televisions are bulky pieces of equipment that tend to last a lot longer than the rapidly obsolete electronics you'd expect in a smart TV. Margins are slim and making a profit is hard, as LG, Sony, Samsung, Philips and others have all discovered in recent years. Buyers wouldn't be upgrading very often, and Apple wouldn't make much money when they did.

These are all points that have been repeatedly made down the years. No doubt they played some part in Apple's thinking.

But Wait, There's More

But aside from the practicalities of TV engineering or the realities of the marketplace, Apple's decision also suggests it just couldn't figure out a way to put its own distinctive mark on the screens that fill our dens and bedrooms.

By contrast, Apple had no problem green-lighting its smartwatch. Whether the Apple Watch goes on to be a roaring success or not, it's certainly distinctive, premium and disruptive. Could any television set Apple might have come up with have made the same impact? It's doubtful.

MacBook Pros, iMacs, iPhones—these bits of kit are compelling and iconic in a way that you can't really envisage a television set being, even with the best efforts of Sir Jony Ive.

Ultra-high resolutions are already here, as are super-slim bezels, curved screens, integrated apps, gesture control and lots more. How would Apple's version have stood out? Or stood out enough to make the endeavour worthwhile?

Indeed, it's the things that would have made an Apple TV set truly compelling that are being built into the Apple TV box that it actually does sell: smart home control, live TV streaming, Siri integration, access to the App Store, and so on.

The Real Apple TV

It's perhaps no coincidence that the real Apple TV is getting a lot more love and attention since the theoretical Apple TV bit the dust. Maybe Tim Cook and his team realized that all the best parts of their new project could be added to the one they had under their noses all along.

And look at the competition: Google, Microsoft, Amazon... these companies are all building boxes to go under your living room TV, without worrying about the actual sets themselves.

Ultimately, a TV is simply a window into something else, plus a small package of extra smarts, and Apple has realized putting those smarts in a separate puck-shaped black box gives it the flexibility it needs to do something that can really make an impact.

Tuesday's North American release of Asus’s new flagship handset, the ZenFone 2, confirms a growing trend that, frankly, fills me with sadness: the rise of the phablet.

Phablet Phatigue

This isn’t a new complaint, of course. Our own Adriana Lee had similar thoughts back in 2013, and since then, the problem has only grown worse. It was clear that the phablet was an unstoppable force when even Apple, the aesthetic-obsessed company that wouldn’t give up on 4-inch phones, unveiled the giant sized iPhone 6 Plus.

As a result of Apple’s journey into the land of giants, the ZenFone 2’s similarly sized 5.5-inch screen has barely raised an eyebrow—even though a phone of that size would have been considered utterly huge only a year ago. We’re all so used to seeing enormous handsets by now that it barely even registers when another one joins the list.

Obviously, there are plenty of benefits to using a larger phone. Bigger displays mean more potential to get things done. A large phone also gets a large battery, which—again—increases a mobile user’s productivity quite a bit.

Put A Ring On It

That said, from an ergonomic standpoint, big phones are also a big pain. At 5’8”, I’m just about average in terms of height for an American male, but just about every new phone that comes out is definitively too hard to handle in my statistically normal-sized hands.

Even Adriana, who wished in vain for smaller phones back in 2013, has gone over to the dark side with her iPhone 6 Plus. Her solution? She’s got an iRing affixed to her phone’s case, which helps her get a grip. And here I thought all you really needed to hold your phone would be, well, hands. Call me old fashioned.

I'm sorry—this is bonkers

The real problem isn’t so much that there are too many phablets, but that there aren’t enough non-phablets these days—at least none that are truly interesting. Consider Asus, LG and Google (by way of Motorola). All three of their flagship phones have screens of at least 5.5 inches. And though the HTC One M8 and One M9 have 5-inch screens, once you add in top and bottom speakers, the phones are again mammoth-sized in the average hand.

Samsung, amazingly, has actually shown something resembling restraint, having opted to reserve its truly ginormous handsets for the Galaxy Note series. Of course, the Galaxy Note is primarily responsible for bringing the current phablet craze to the world, so Samsung only gets partial credit for that one.

At the end of the day, there’s something to be said for a device that can actually fit comfortably in your hand and pocket. I’m still holding out hope—quite possibly forlorn—that Apple won't let the iPhones 5S and 5C shuffle away without designing a new 4-inch iPhone. We need Apple to lead by example for more modest devices—you know, ones that don’t make me look like a baby holding a tablet up to his face.

The Apple TV is reportedly in line to get its first software-development kit, or SDK, which will for the first time give developers the tools to code apps and more for the tiny black box of entertainment tricks.

This news comes by way of a "proven source" speaking to 9to5Mac, who also told the site that the Apple Watch is in line for its first major software update—also via its SDK.

The Joy Of SDK

While SDKs don't usually get consumer pulses racing, they're enormously important to the coders who build the apps that end users will eventually get to play with. An Apple TV SDK, for instance, will give the device third-party app support that hasn't previously been available.

Based on 9to5Mac's information, the new tools will introduce a Find My Watch feature for the Apple Watch, enabling users to locate lost timepieces in the same way they can hunt down lost iPhones. It may also include a 'Smart Leashing' feature where an alert is sounded if iPhone and Apple Watch lose connection with each other.

Health and fitness software components are in line for an upgrade too, although a planned heart rate warning system may not see the light of day due to regulatory concerns. Sleep tracking and blood pressure monitoring are said to be on the way, a rumor we've heard before.

Apple has promised developers will eventually be able to create standalone apps on its smartwatch, and that looks to be a likely upgrade in the next SDK. Access to Complications—the small widgets available for watch faces—is also said to be on the table.

Apps And More For The Apple TV

The Apple TV, set for an upgrade

With the Apple TV in prime position for a refresh at WWDC at the start of June, it makes perfect sense that an SDK would also be imminent. In addition to adding support that will let users control the Apple TV with an Apple Watch, the new coding tools are apparently going to add Siri to the Apple TV.

Many industry watchers are also expecting some kind of cord-cutting 'Live TV' service on the Apple TV, and the new SDK will reflect that. 9to5Mac's sources say the service won't arrive until after the new hardware, however.

Then there's third-party app support, opening the doors to Apple TV for everything from Facebook to Candy Crush. Gaming is another important area of potential growth, with the hardware box set to be larger and more powerful than the current version.

We've had no official confirmation from Apple, but it would be a surprise if it wasn't planning these kind of software upgrades in the near future. The approaching arrival of Windows 10 is a reminder that we're living in an increasingly multi-device world, and getting Apple Watch and Apple TV up to speed is crucial (especially with HomeKit finding its feet).

Apple's relaunch of Beats Music—possibly to be known as Apple Music—could come as soon as its Worldwide Developer Conference in June. But Apple is relatively late to the streaming game, and as a result will be facing off against a fair bit of entrenched competition, from independents like Spotify to big names like Google and Microsoft.

To give you an idea of what Apple's taking on—and the level of choice you have if you're in the market for a music streaming app—we've rounded up all the major services and picked out the key features for you.

First, though, a caveat: Weighing one music streaming service against another is more challenging than you might think. For a start, there's no easy way to compare the availability of music among the millions of tracks on offer. The mix of tracks on each service also varies between countries and markets.

Then there's support for the dozens of third-party platforms to consider, from Sonos speakers to Chromecasts to games consoles. Add to that features like music curation, editorial content, exclusives, family plans, integration with external apps (such as Last.fm) and attempting a side-by-side comparison can quickly become an overwhelming task.

We've also had to leave out certain services for reasons of brevity, including Amazon Prime Music (with a much smaller library, it's more of a Prime add-on than a serious challenger) and Pandora (which focuses on radio streams rather than on-demand playlists).

With those caveats in mind, consider our summaries below as a brief taster of what you get with each service. All of them have free trials available, so check them out individually to see if your favorite tunes and features are included. All data is correct as of May 2015 and has been checked with company representatives.

Spotify

Launched: 2008

Songs: 30 million

Users: 60 million, 15 million subscribers

Platforms: Web, desktop, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry

Quality: Up to 320kbps

Free plan: Stream songs on demand to desktops and tablet devices with a limit on track skipping and audio quality, as well as occasional adverts. Stream shuffled radio-style playlists on smartphone devices.

$9.99/month plan: No restrictions on audio quality or track skipping, and no adverts. Plus the ability to cache songs and playlists for offline listening on desktop, tablet or smartphone.

Spotify is the first name that springs to mind when it comes to music streaming, as it's largely responsible for pioneering the model. Its key features are broad availability, both in terms of supported platforms and countries where it can be used; the option to import your own MP3s in addition to streamed tracks; and the general polish of its apps.

Rdio

Launched: 2010

Songs: 32 million

Users: Undisclosed

Platforms: Web, desktop, iOS, Android, Windows Phone

Quality: Up to 320kbps

Free plan: Like Spotify, you can listen for free on Rdio on desktop or mobile—there's no skipping, no offline listening, and you're limited to algorithm-driven radio stations based on mood, genre or a particular artist.

$3.99/month plan: Rdio's newest plan gives you ad-free, higher-quality listening on mobile, though you're still stuck with radio-style stations. 25 songs can be cached for offline use. On desktop, there's no difference from the free plan.

$9.99/month plan: Subscribe at the top level and you get everything Rdio has to offer, including on-demand listening without skip limits or ads, and offline playback on mobile devices for times when you don't have a connection.

Rdio is often to be found in Spotify's shadow, which is a shame because it does a lot of things rather well. The Web interface is cleaner and handles swapping between computers better than Spotify, although the big miss is the ability to import your own local tracks. That aside, there's very little to choose between Rdio and Spotify in terms of features and speed.

Google Play Music All Access

Launched: 2011

Songs: 30 million

Users: Undisclosed

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Quality: Up to 320kbps

Free plan: Google lets you upload up to 50,000 of your own tracks to the cloud for free and then stream them to computers and mobile devices. As long as you're only interested in your own purchased MP3s, it works well.

$9.99/month plan: If you subscribe you get a Spotify-style service on top of the locker, so millions more songs to stream on demand. You get mood-based playlists too, as well as YouTube Music Key for no extra charge.

Google's offering is actually one of the most comprehensive out there, particularly if you want to bring your own tracks along, so it's strange that it doesn't have the same kind of high profile as Spotify. However, there's no desktop app, the Web apps aren't quite as polished as some rival ones, and you can't collaborate on playlists with other people.

Deezer

Launched: 2007

Songs: 35 million

Users: 16 million, 6 million subscribers

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Quality: Up to 1411kbps

Free plan: Deezer offers its own ad-supported tier, like Spotify, and it's almost exactly the same—you get adverts when listening on desktop or tablet, and on smartphones you're limited to radio-style mixes.

£9.99/month plan: Pay for a premium plan and you get all the usual goodies (no ads, offline support, freedom with your playlists and so on). It also has a team of global editors picking out the best music picks.

£14.99/month plan: For an extra £5 you can get Tidal-style lossless quality, though this Deezer Elite package is only available via Sonos speakers for now (it's also the only part of Deezer to launch in the US up to this point).

Popular in Europe but less well-known in the U.S. (where it's yet to fully launch), Deezer hits all the same features as Spotify and Rdio, even if its apps are a little less intuitive and slick. It also includes local MP3 uploads for paying members, like Spotify and Google Play Music, so you can fill gaps in its catalog with CD rips or digital music purchased elsewhere.

Tidal

Launched: 2014

Songs: 25 million

Users: Undisclosed

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Quality: Up to 1411kbps

$9.99/month plan: There's a free trial available for Tidal but no free tier, and this cheaper option gives you access to Tidal's 25 million tracks up to a quality of 320kbps. 75,000 high-quality music videos are included too.

$19.99/month plan: To get the uncompressed, lossless music that Tidal is known for, you need to pay double the money. To be able to notice the difference you'll want to pay more for your audio equipment as well.

Tidal's lossless, CD-quality music is its headline feature, but it's keen to highlight the music videos and curated content on offer too. Social media features are tightly integrated and there's plenty of extra material from artists as well, plus an appealing bunch of apps. Whether it's enough to tempt subscribers to pay twice what they do with Spotify is up to you.

Xbox Music

Launched: 2012

Songs: 38 million

Users: Undisclosed

Platforms: Web, Windows, iOS, Android, Windows Phone

Quality: Up to 256kbps

$9.99/month plan: Xbox Music ditched its free tier last year (a 30-day trial is still available) so you can pay $9.99 a month or $99.90 for a whole year. That gets you unlimited streaming and caching across all of your devices, which of course includes the Xbox.

Microsoft's take on Spotify/iTunes is a confusing beast, complicated by its Zune-related history, its original reliance on the Xbox and a half-hearted attempt at Windows 8 integration. (It may, however, finally be shifting away from the confusing "Xbox" branding for its music service.) Recently a new feature enabled users to stream local MP3s via OneDrive alongside millions of other tracks, making this most akin to Google's offering, but it needs a lot of refinement.

Rhapsody/Napster

Launched: 2001

Songs: 32 million

Users: Undisclosed

Platforms: Web, Windows, iOS, Android, Windows Phone

Quality: Up to 320kbps

$4.99/month plan: Rhapsody's basic unRadio service is a Pandora-style shuffled stream that you can't fully control, though you do get unlimited skips and the option to save up to 25 'favorites' for offline listening.

$9.99/month plan: Unlimited access to millions of songs, offline downloads and up to three registered devices come with the Premier package. You can sign up for a 30-day free trial first to see if you like it.

Rhapsody is one of the oldest digital music services around (streaming or otherwise) and has acquired sister service Napster (now a genuinely legal platform) in the UK. Thanks to Rhapsody's longevity, it has a large library of tracks and supports a lot of different devices, though the newer alternatives feel more nimble and better at mobile and music discovery.

Beats Music

Launched: 2014

Songs: 20 million

Users: Undisclosed

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone

Quality: Up to 320kbps

$9.99/month plan: Unlimited streaming, offline listening and a personalized experience are what you can expect. You can also pay $99.99 per year. There's no free tier, just the obligatory free trial period.

When Apple unveils its new streaming service we're expecting Beats Music to form the foundation of it, so it's worth mentioning even if it won't be around in its current form for very much longer. Beats Music puts a lot of emphasis on its curation and discovery features, which are handled by human editors rather than computer algorithms.

Got an idea for an Apple Watch app? Now you can make your own no-fuss, interactive prototype—no device, no downloads and no coding knowledge required. ThinkApps launched a free online tool Tuesday that lets users throw together a working concept, complete with glances and notifications, using drag and drop.

An on-demand service for designing and building Web, mobile and wearables apps, ThinkApps created a DIY tool that looks both basic and robust at the same time. I’m no coder, but I gave it a whirl and created my own ReadWrite watch app in about 15 minutes. (I must be slow—the company promises people can do it in under 10.)

All the (admittedly simple) features worked well in my mock-up, and seeing it in action helped me make certain choices early on and prevent issues from cropping up later.

Maybe it can’t accommodate every possible permutation or feature you might hope for, but when it comes to basic apps, it works quite well. According to ThinkApps, it's "already programmed with all of the Watch guidelines, so you don’t have to worry about knowing what’s allowed and what’s not.” Essentially, for the budding watch app developer, the tool could theoretically act as a starting point for building real apps.

Here’s a closer look.

If You Can Dream It, You Can App It (Within Limits)

ThinkApps' goal is to make watch app development easy and accessible for everyone, regardless of whether or not they have design or programming skills. “No, you need not be a designer or engineer,” ThinkApps co-founder Tarun Agarwal said in a company blog post. “This DIY tool can be used by anyone.”

Indeed, the site makes easy work of making watch apps by pre-selecting the layouts for most of the screens, notifications and glances. There’s still plenty to choose from, and you can string them up in numerous different ways. But people building watch apps from the ground up will be able to do more.

Not that they should. When it comes to watch apps, simplicity is key, developers tell ReadWrite. That makes ThinkApps’ tool somewhat compelling, since its goal is to reduce complication. The company writes:

… with Photoshop and other general purpose design tools, you have to start from scratch, including creating the screen, basic lines, boxes, etc. That allows for arbitrary flexibility to designers to create paper flyers, website designs, mobile app designs, and so forth.

ThinkApps for Watch, on the other hand, is focused on allowing everyone, including non-designers, to quickly create interactive Apple Watch concepts. So, we’ve already added the relevant Watch components that users can work with, rather than starting with lines and boxes.

Users can name their apps, upload pictures for their app icons, set up the various screens, and then decide which screens the buttons and interactions tie into. To add images, you can drag and drop them in, and for text, you can copy and paste, or write them in, and they'll populate your screens.

When you’re done, hit “preview” and test out the concept on your computer screen.

Here’s how mine looks:

Beginners will want to start small—i.e., with just a few screens—and work up from there, stopping to preview and test as they go. Experienced developers who are used to mapping out functions may also benefit from laying out their schemas in a working model. When you’re done, built-in sharing tools let you send the concept to friends, colleagues or even a small group of people for some early user research.

Fast And Simple Wins The Arm Race

The tool offers some business uses—say, to illustrate a proposal for your company to build its own watch app or to help experienced developers visualize how their apps will function. In fact, it’s the company's adherence to the WatchKit components and guidelines that take this from tinker-toy to real app-development tool.

ThinkApps, which says it has followed the Apple Watch since the device was first previewed last fall, went through all the WatchKit requirements, so Apple presumably should have no reason to nix it. (Just don't mention Pebble. That seems like a fast track to Apple's rejection pile.)

The experience of crafting apps these days varies quite a bit, depending on the platform, but also the specific device—apps for phones vary from tablet apps, and there’s a drastically different mindset that goes into making apps for TVs, with its menu-driven, remote control–oriented usage model. Even if you have experience on all those fronts, smartwatches are inherently different.

App developers can’t just take a phone app and miniaturize it. They need to distill them down, or strip them into its barest essentials, so they’ll make sense for those tiniest of screens strapped to our arms.

To see more examples of apps built with the tool, or to give it a try yourself, you can visit the website here.

Screencaps courtesy of ThinkApps, captured by Adriana Lee for ReadWrite

Rejections Going Overboard

The latest app to be hit with a rejection is the Swim.com Pebble Uploader, which is like “Strava for swimming,” according to the app’s developer, Davis Wuolle. The app logs how many strokes a Pebble-wearing swimmer takes, plus lap times, pace and distance. The app uses the Pebble Data Logging API to store swim workout files, and wearers can use the Pebble Uploader to beam that data to their Swim.com accounts.

Wuolle and his team got the app approved back in October, despite a few problems at first.

“They spit it back out several times,” says Wuolle, who believes the App Store's resolution center didn't fully understand what the app was supposed to do:

They were giving us a hard time about the metadata, so we ended up cleaning all that up, fixed some small bugs that we had, and we got into the submission process probably three or four times before it actually went through.

Once he explained the uploader’s sole function to the resolution center, something finally clicked at Apple and the app was approved. “From there we really had no issues submitting updates for it under the same name: Swim.com Pebble Uploader,” Wuolle says.

That is, until the app’s most recent update, which added a pop-up notification to tell users that the Uploader would soon be discontinued in favor of a new Swim.com iOS app that supports multiple wearable devices such as the Pebble, Garmin wearables, and the Poolmate Watch.

Wuolle submitted the update on April 27, only a few days after Apple stated it wasn’t rejecting apps connected to Pebble. It didn’t take long to get a rejection notice dinging the app for mentioning “irrelevant platform information in its App Name”:

The rejection notice from Apple over the Swim.com Pebble Uploader update

“We submitted a response in the resolution center saying the app name literally describes exactly what the app does,” says Wuolle, noting that the name—“Swim.com Pebble Uploader”—has remained the same since the app was approved back in October.

“Literally nothing changed except for adding this one pop-up,” he says.

For now, Wuolle is waiting to hear back from Apple about what—if anything—he can do next. The good news is that the fully featured Swim.com iOS app, for which the Pebble Uploader was just a stopgap solution anyway, is available for his users.

“Luckily for us, the app update didn’t contain anything that was critical to users to fix,” he says. “It just contained information about our new app, so they can download our new app.”

I’ve reached out to Apple for comment. In the meantime, Wuolle is still optimistic about Swim.com’s future with Apple, and perhaps its presence on an Apple-made wearable someday.

“We’re really happy that Apple has launched a wearable,” he says. “Obviously the Apple Watch isn’t waterproof enough to swim with officially, and there are some other constraints regarding that. But our goal for Swim.com is to support every wearable possible, and we really don’t want to be exclusive to anyone. We want Swim.com to be available to swimmers no matter which wearable they choose.”

Lead image by Adriana Lee for ReadWrite; other images courtesy of Swim.com

Welcome to the wild new world of third-party watch bands for the Apple Watch, one that will encompass everything from design accessories to straps that attempt to add new functions to Apple's smartwatch—at least one via a "hidden" port in the watch itself.

Apple just formally welcomed accessory makers to the party with its official Band Design Guidelines. These set out the measurements and materials third-party firms must use if they're to get the "Made for Apple Watch" badge of approval.

The guidelines are accompanied by some exacting environmental requirements and a comprehensive set of technical drawings, but there's no mention of the hidden 6-pin diagnostic port on each watch that could provide charging and data transfer capabilities.

This port has been one of the most intriguing subplots in the Apple Watch story so far: Does it exist? (Yes.) Will it make it to retail models? (Yes.) What does it do? (We're still not exactly sure.)

Apple has never made any official reference to the port—neither in its band guidelines or during its various public events—so we don't have much to go on. The iFixit teardown confirmed the port is there, and the general assumption has been that it's intended for developer and technician use only.

As far as straps are concerned, Apple's new guidelines suggest it wants accessory makers to focus on alternative looks and styles for the timepiece rather than adding any specific new functionality. The bands must be durable, resistant to the elements and able to keep the watch in contact with the wearer's skin, Apple says.

Officially approved bands are also required to be non-magnetic to avoid interfering with the heart rate sensor built into the new wearable.

The approach contrasts with Pebble's more open strategy, where smartstrap makers are encouraged to add as much functionality and extra gadgetry as they can. GPS, Wi-Fi and battery packs are all on the table, not just different colors and styles.

The Reserve Strap

The Reserve Strap prototype.

Whatever Apple's guidelines say, at least one company is planning to create an Apple Watch strap that can boost the device's battery. The Reserve Strap, a project by Mutual Mobile, was first conceived as a chunky band that wrapped around the watch with cut-out holes for the sensors.

Since the Reserve Strap team has had time to play with an actual Apple Watch, they've refined their prototype product to make it thinner, lighter ... and reliant on the 6-pin diagnostic port. That move is sure to test the limits of what Apple is prepared to allow from watch accessories.

By using the port the Reserve Strap can charge faster and store more power, according to its makers.

"We just confirmed our prototype device is capable of charging the Apple Watch," Mutual Mobile founder John Arrow told ReadWrite in an email. "Based on initial testing we are extremely confident that the Reserve Strap will be able to extend the Apple Watch battery life by up to 125 percent for both the 38mm and 42mm models."

"The best part is that our current prototype design now makes use of the 6 pin 'diagnostic port' built into every Apple Watch," he continued. "This means that the Reserve Strap will NOT block any of the Apple Watch's sensors and will be even slimmer than the original renderings on the Reserve Strap website."

Preorders for the Reserve Strap are open now—for the substantial sum of $249—but development is still at an early stage, and there's no fixed launch date. The company says it will provide a tool with each strap to enable users to open up the 6-pin port on their watches.

It's going to be interesting to see whether or not Apple allows this kind of accessory, or indeed if it can do anything to stop it—presumably the port could be disabled or tweaked in a future OS update, but at this stage it's difficult to know for sure.

The Apple Watch looks like no friend to fans of the body arts. The device lost some of its shine when several buyers reported problems using their new wearable on heavily tattooed arms.

Apparently, dark body ink seems to interfere with the gadget's sensors, producing inaccurate readings in some cases or completely stifling some features, like alerts, in others.

Anecdotal though they may be, evidence of the problems keeps mounting. Given the way the photoplethysmographic sensors work, and the fact that the watch relies on them for key functions, Apple should have foreseen some of these issues. Instead, it's trying to delve into it after the fact, investigating the problems. (Though it hasn't offered any official comment yet.) While we wait, here's some insight into the matter.

The Tatt Offensive

Redditor guinne55fan said he was unable to get notifications on his watch, unless he moved the device to a non-tattooed area of his arm. Meanwhile, Michael Lovell told The Register that the step counter failed on his tattooed right wrist, but worked on his blank left one.

Running some tests of its own, iMore found that dark and solid colors gave the Apple Watch most trouble. Lighter tattoos caused errant heart rate readings, showing slightly higher results, but no other major problems, while some tattoos didn't affect the smartwatch's functionality at all.

Maybe none of the Apple Watch testers sport ink of the troublesome variety, so the issues weren't obvious. But when a new product charges consumers some of the most expensive prices in its industry, the company should have tested the units in an array of settings and on a large variety of users. If it had, Apple might have known about the potential problems and informed consumers that dark ink colors might vex the watch prior to them purchasing it.

Naturally, when the conversation revolves around skin tones, the matter begs the question of how the sensors will work for people of color. One look at Apple's rather homogenous leadership team doesn't exactly inspire confidence there.

However, some tech makers found a way to approach that challenge, based on how the sensors work.

What's Tricky About Photoplethysmography (Other Than Pronouncing It)

At the core of the Apple Watch's suite of integrated monitors is a photoplethysmographic sensor that uses infrared and green lights to measure blood flow and thus heart rate.

The company recommends keeping the Apple Watch tight to the wrist to achieve the best results and, like many wearables, the watch might also boost LED intensity if it struggles to get a reading. But take that with a sizable grain of salt. Consumer-grade trackers and wrist-based sensors in general aren't all that accurate to begin with.

Apple's own support document admits that the sensor may not get perfect readings consistently: "Even under ideal conditions, Apple Watch may not be able to get a reliable heart rate reading every time for everybody. And for a small percentage of users, various factors may make it impossible to get any heart rate reading at all," it says. Those factors can include cold temperatures, scar tissue and, apparently, tattoos.

If the watch does increase LED light to compensate for differences in natural skin tones, then it seems to work, judging by comments in the original Reddit thread. (Though it may not inspire cheers, given the potential battery hit.) Logically, it seems like it should work for tattoos too. But either it doesn't kick in for artificially pigmented skin, or it's just not effective for it.

If you're worried about it working on your inked forearm, the best course of action is to head to an Apple Store and try one out in person before making a purchase.

Another course of action: Turn off the wrist-detection feature. By default the Apple Watch only counts steps and sends notifications when it's touching skin, as likely determined by the photoplethysmographic sensor. Shutting that down lets the device continue piping alerts and counting steps regardless of its contact with your wrist. That's not ideal, though, as it also disables Apple Pay.

Given how popular body ink has become, Apple can't remain silent on this matter forever. At the very least, it should update its support documents to mention tattoos. In the meantime, let's chalk this up to yet another reminder of the perils of early adoption—particularly of a brand-new, first-generation device.

The demise of the computer is still nowhere to be seen. In fact, at Apple’s latest earnings call Monday, the company revealed that it pulled in $58 billion in total revenue in its January-March quarter, $5.6 billion of which came from Mac products. Meanwhile, the iPad accounted for $5.43 billion.

Then again, that’s no huge accomplishment, given the iPad’s decline for more than a year now. Year over year, iPad sales have stumbled quite a bit. The latest figures peg 12.6 million tablets shipped, down from 16.35 million iPads a year earlier.

The biggest winners in the revenue game, however, were the usual suspects: the iPhone, which brought in a whopping 69 percent of total revenue, and Apple's services—including iTunes, the App Store, iCloud, and others—which accounted for just under $5 billion.

What's In A Number?

If Apple made all of its decisions based on earnings alone, the iPad would look doomed. But it doesn’t.

Part of the reason: The iPad is still popular in China. “In PRC [the People’s Republic of China] … the iPad had its best quarter ever, and also grew in a market that contracted,” said CEO Tim Cook, who also seemed encouraged by high levels of "intent to buy” from prospective customers and high existing usage rates. Also, Apple, which has deals in place with partners like IBM, hopes to make its iPads premier businesses tools.

The other factor, of course, is that the company debuted its largest smartphones ever last year, which—admits Cook—cannibalized iPad sales. “Have we had cannibalization? The answer’s yes,” he said. "We’ve seen cannibalization from the iPhone and from the Mac," the latter category of which just got an update in the form of a new, slimmer-than-ever Macbook laptop. "It is what it is," Cook said. “But we’re not worried about that. At some point it will level out.”

Apple didn’t disclose any sales figures or units shipped for the Apple Watch. The only number it announced was that the device hit the market with a strong software base of 3,500 apps available.

Apple also divulged that its “other products”—including the Apple TV, AirPort, Beats headphones and, of course, the iPod—raked in $1.69 billion this quarter. This time next year, we might see the iPad eventually land in that “other” category, if Apple’s grand plans don’t succeed. We may even witness the Apple TV busting out of those ranks and into the spotlight.

For now, the only thing we know for sure is that Apple is keeping a close eye on the Apple Watch, and rooting for it to land on or near the top of its charts. But we strongly suspect that it'll be a while before the littlest Apple gizmo can leapfrog the iPhone.

As the earliest adopters get busy binding their wrists, practicing their “force touches” and updating their iPhone apps to work with the wearable, we took stock of a few interesting details that have clocked in with the Apple Watch’s arrival.

Your MagSafe charger can rat out your cheapskate purchase

Not that there’s anything wrong with picking up the Sport, the least expensive version of the Apple Watch. But if you’re touchy about it—maybe if you've even swapped out watchbands to hide that fact—then don’t plan on powering up on the go. Whipping out the plastic magnetic charger will be a dead giveaway.

By contrast, the mid-range and super-special (read: pricey) versions of the Apple Watch—branded, confusingly, as the Apple Watch and the Apple Watch Edition—both come with metallic chargers. Fortunately, all of them work pretty fast, so the difference is really just skin deep.

Your MagSafe charger may power other devices ...

According to an Apple Insider reader named Albert Lee, an Apple Watch charger worked on his Moto 360 smartwatch, since both use the Qi wireless charging standard. Mashable confirmed this with its own tests.

That’s actually a much bigger deal than it seems. Qi, the most popular among mobile makers, is just one of three wireless charging standards that’s trying to dominate the gadget world. Over the past year, the other two—the newer PowerMat and latest Rezence standards—have joined forces, making it easier for manufacturers to support both in one product.

At some point, the industry has to decide on one path to move forward, if it hopes to see wireless charging become as common as micro USB cables. If Apple has thrown its weight behind Qi, that could tip the scales back in its favor.

Or at least it would, if not for the following.

... but the Apple Watch can’t use other random Qi chargers (at least, so far)

The Apple Watch can't receive power from other Qi chargers that aren't designed explicitly for the watch—at least not yet.

According to Mashable’s tests, the reverse scenario—with other Qi chargers sending power to the Apple Watch—doesn’t work. Now, the site only tried two charging products, and it's not clear whether the problem comes from a technical issue or if incompatible physical designs got in the way.

We don’t know which version of Qi the test chargers use, and that matters. Older versions can be notoriously fussy, forcing users to place devices on just the right spot on mats. But last year, an update brought support for a different, and much more flexible type of charging called resonance charging, which can send power from a farther distance. It’s possible the Apple Watch may eventually work with newer Qi products. If so, then these chargers could succeed in zinging the juice where others failed.

The watch could be the beginning of Apple’s wireless charging assault

The last few months have been good for Qi, which also saw IKEA pack the standard into its furniture. For Apple, stepping into wireless charging could have major implications across the company's entire portfolio of products. Take that new MacBook with just one port, for instance. If its watch experiment proves successful, an upcoming model of the laptop could boast wireless charging too, making that single port more reasonable and less aggravating. Along the way, the iPhones and iPads could get some Qi support too.

Apple’s tack may be "far from innovative compared with other wireless charging technologies currently in production or development,” as IHT analyst Ryan Sanderson put it in a press statement he sent me, back when Apple first announced the watch. But it doesn’t need to be innovative. Apple products tend to boost companies, tech standards and even whole industries, when they adopt them. And wireless charging, which has been on the brink of mainstream adoption for ages, could use a nudge in the right direction.

Finally, a justification for that confusing Digital Crown: underwater use!

The Apple Watch’s water-resistance comes as no surprise; it’s listed as a feature. But when FoneFox put it through a water torture test—showering and swimming with it, dunking it in a bucket—it discovered that the touchscreen couldn’t handle the waterboarding.

Fortunately, the "digital crown"—the little click wheel on the side—does, which may justify the addition of this feature. But don’t take that as a cue to try dunking the watch yourself.

The watch could measure your blood oxygen levels (but it won’t)

When iFixit autopsied the 38mm Apple Watch, it found that the heart-rate monitor could measure more than beats per minute—it could measure blood oxygen. The approach, known to doctors as pulse oximetry, helps them ensure patients have adequate oxygen levels during surgery (or any other time they're under sedation), as well as while they’re taking lung medications or physically exerting themselves.

Naturally, that conjures certain activities—like rock climbing or, given its water tolerance, some light scuba diving. But stop right there. iFixit speculates that Apple stayed mum about this sensor due to federal regulations. Measuring oxygen levels in the blood skirts the line between quantified fitness and health, and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration can be rather particular when it comes to approving health equipment.

At this point, we don’t know whether the sensor will wind up as ResearchKit fodder for Apple's medical research initiative, or a tool to please extreme athletes. All we know for now is that it’s there, lying dormant until Apple’s ready and able to flip the switch.

Some parts are easy to replace ...

Batteries have a shelf life, often measured in the number charges they'll take throughout their life before they act up or even go completely dead. The Apple Watch’s lifespan too will eventually run out, which may spur some users to try swapping the battery on their own.

There’s good news and bad news there. The battery is relatively easy to replace, in and of itself; it's only attached with a bit of adhesive, making it easy to pop out. But you have to get to it first. The screen stands in the way. Apply heat to loosen the glue holding it down, and then unhook the display cable. The latter may be a bit tricky, judging by iFixit’s teardown.

When the site tore into the 38mm watch, it found a 205 mAh battery. The larger watch probably boasts a bigger battery, which may or may not affect how easy it is to dig the power cell out. Other parts, like the cables, speaker, buttons and the "Taptic Engine” (which deals vibration alerts) can challenge the far-sighted, with their small size and itty bitty screws, but don’t seem impossible to pluck out. The watch’s processor, however, looks like it’s practically a permanent fixture. (See below.)

Note that messing with the watch’s guts will void the warranty. This stuff is not for the faint of heart—or the poorly sighted. (There’s a reason watchmakers use a loupe.)

... but others, not so much

The Apple Watch runs off a fancy hardware nugget called the S1, which packs a processor, wireless radios, memory and sensors into one “system on a chip.” Though teensy, the technology is powerful. Apparently, so is the glue holding it together.

Few Apple Watch owners will ever stare into that wee abyss, and that’s a good thing, judging by iFixit’s experience trying to pull it apart:

Despite rumors (and hopes) of an upgradable product, the difficulty of removing the S1 alone casts serious doubt on the idea of simply swapping out the internals.

Just like regular watches, the straps will get nasty

Apple Watch straps may not ever get this nasty (unless you throw one into a campfire), but they won't look pretty forever

Even the majestic halo of Apple gadgetry can’t ward off the realities of simple chemistry. Users wear these gadgets next to their skin, which means grossness will force touch them over time—especially the straps. You can clean off metal, but you can’t bring back leather and fluoroelastomer watch bands back from discoloration and warping.

There are already thousands of apps for the watch

Watch users can do a tremendous number of things from their wrists already. They can unlock Starwood hotel doors, read New York Times news headlines, shop, navigate the outdoors, check into Foursquare locations, stay on top of Expedia reservation updates, track packages, and many, many other things.

If that’s not enough, the IFTTT service (short for “If This Then That”) just integrated the Do Button and Do Note apps for the Apple Watch, giving users access to as many as 170 more apps. According to an IFTTT rep, "people can easily run their favorite recipes with just one tap, right from their wrist.”

It’s not clear yet how many of these features qualify as genuinely useful, or whether people really want to do that much from their wrists, but kudos to app developers for busting out their creativity caps.

It's been a long wait since September, but Apple Watch launch day is finally upon us—and Apple has brought some 3,000 apps to the party, according to the best estimates. At the time of writing, WatchAware is showing 2,436.

Too bad most of them are doomed to obscurity.

The Gold Rush Is On

Developers are falling over themselves to announce Apple Watch support, and who can blame them? This is the biggest gadget launch of the year, and there's no shortage of apps hoping to ride along on the hype.

Apple has singled out apps by Instagram, Yelp, The New York Times and Twitter as particularly worthy of attention. Others so anointed include Citymapper, weather forecasting app Dark Sky and Mint, the personal finance tracker.

Then there are the apps shown off by Apple on stage in September and March: The American Airlines app for getting through the airport terminal more efficiently, and the Starwood Hotels app for unlocking your hotel room door with a swipe of your wrist.

Media outlets have been equally keen to push their lists of must-have Apple Watch apps that should be installed as soon as the wearable is unwrapped. It's quite a contrast to the launch of the iPhone, which of course had no third-party app support to begin with.

Fool's Gold

2,000+ apps and growing.

Irrespective of how many units it actually sells, the Apple Watch is generating a huge amount of interest—and it makes sense for developers to try and tap into that. It's a ticket into the biggest tech party of the year.

But at the same time it's important to temper expectations about just how many of these apps are going to gain traction on the wrist, where screen size and attention span is more limited than ever before.

Smartphone app development can rake in millions with the right formula, but life on the long tail of that success is less appealing. If anything, there are going to be fewer winners on wearables, not more.

While developers rush to get their apps updated to take advantage of the new smartwatch, not every app suits a 1.5-inch display. Get the mix wrong, and users might actually end up spending less time with an app because of its Apple Watch extension.

Once the initial rush for Watch compatibility dies down, and Apple opens up the field to standalone apps that can run independently on the wearable, we'll get a much better idea of who has found the right balance and who hasn't. The winners in the wearable app rush will be the ones that offer the most usefulness, not those that got there first.

Lead photo manipulated by Brian Rubin for ReadWrite; other images courtesy of Apple and WatchAware

Apple doesn’t cotton well to competitors setting up shop in its App Store, and now Pebble might be starting to feel the heat. An app developer said that Apple rejected an update to his Pebble-compatible app on Thursday because he dared mention "Pebble" in the app's metadata.

It's possibly a dire harbinger for Pebble, which to date has managed to co-exist peacefully with Apple in its App Store. Now that the Apple Watch is making its way into the hands of consumers, though, that détente may be over.

(I've reached out to Steve for comment, and will update if he gets back to me.)

The rejection notice cited a four-year-old rule from Apple's developer guidelines that states: “Apps or metadata that mentions the name of any other mobile platform will be rejected.” SeaNav US’s rejection specifically reads, in part:

We noticed that your app or its metadata contains irrelevant platform information in the app. Providing future platform compatibility plans, or other platform references, is not appropriate for the App Store.

Specifically, your app and app description declare support for the Pebble Smartwatch.

SeaNav US, however, has offered Pebble support on the App Store for the last two years. It’s telling, and not a little ominous, that Apple decided to reject an app that mentions Pebble support on the eve of the Apple Watch’s launch. As it turns out, Steve said he'd uploaded the update to the App Store explicitly to add support for the Apple Watch.

How long until Apple rejects other apps that support the Pebble?

Additionally, as other forum users point out, Pebble isn’t a mobile platform at all. It's more of an accessory, like any number of fitness trackers. (Not that Apple views all fitness trackers with equanimity, as Fitbit learned last year when Apple tossed the device out of its retail stores.) The Apple Watch launch—or, perhaps, just the in-app mention of it in close proximity to its rival Pebble—might have focused Apple's attention on Pebble-related apps it had previously allowed through benign neglect.

Apple support responded to Steve’s appeal by suggesting he remove mention of Pebble from the app’s metadata. That, of course, would prevent App Store users from knowing that SeaNav US supports Pebble—which is presumably the point.

Skipping The Pebble

It can be dangerous to extrapolate from a single incident, especially since individual App Store reviewers aren't always reliable indicators of Apple corporate policy. If this rejection stands, though, you have to wonder just how long Apple is going to tolerate other Pebble-compatible apps—much less the main Pebble app itself—in the App Store.

Such a development would also seem to put the kibosh on any potential Apple-Google cooperation in smartwatches, however far-fetched it might have seemed. There have been several indications over the past few months that Google is developing an iOS version of its Android Wear app.

But if Pebble can't maintain its beachhead in the App Store, you probably shouldn't count on pairing an Android smartwatch with your iPhone any time soon.

Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference will take place June 8-12, the company announced Tuesday. As usual, the iPhone maker will kick things off with a keynote address that essentially maps out its iOS and OS X initiatives, perhaps with a smattering of other things this time around.

June used to mark iPhone season, but since Apple moved its iPhone hardware announcements to the fall, the summer timeframe has become wide open for covering different ground. Apple has plenty of other ground to cover. Apart from usual suspects iPhone and Mac software, the company could also announce a few updates on schemes ranging from other software improvements to new TV boxes to streaming services, as well as some other surprises.

Here's a look at what could be on tap.

WWDC Rumor Round-Up

First thing’s first: If you’re a developer interested in attending the show, you can apply for tickets here. Apple will accept attendees at random, letting people know if they’ve gained entrance by April 20. Registration costs $1,600. If you won’t (or can’t) get a seat at San Francisco’s Moscone West, take heart: The keynote will also stream online on Apple.com.

As for what to expect, the only thing you can be sure of at this point is that the Web will overanalyze the invitation to within an inch of its life.

The graphic and tag line don’t offer much in the way of clues. Good thing we’ve been keeping our eyes open for rumors and other indications signaling what Apple might be up to. Here are a few things that may or may not come our way:

iOS 9

June has long been iOS season, and naturally, the world expects the new version of the iPhone software. We’ll probably get that, but unfortunately, iOS 9 probably won’t quicken any pulses. The “big reveal” already happened last year with iOS 8, which brought new layouts adapted to suit ginormous phone displays, new notifications that let people respond without opening apps, payments and fitness features, tools to extend phone functions to the Apple Watch, and more.

Beats Music Streaming

Apple's Eddy Cue and Beats' Jimmy Iovine

A new Music app nestled inside the developer version of iOS 8.4 and falling iTunes sales have given rise to rumors that Apple will finally roll out Beats music streaming. Backed by music industry heavyweights Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, the service joined the Apple family last year, and now may become one cornerstone of Apple’s strategic move to become a media provider. (See Apple TV below.)

If it sees the light of day this time, the Beats service could become part of iTunes, absorbing the existing iTunes Radio service and forming a single music destination on Apple devices. The subscription price is expected to land anywhere from $8 to $10 per month, the latter of which would be on par with rivals like Spotify and Rdio.

Mac OS X 10.11

OS X 10.10 Yosemite's desktop

Considering WWDC is a developer conference, it’s likely Apple will have other software-related announcements beyond iOS. Updates to its Mac operating system seem like a lock. But what could the follow-up to OS X 10.10 Yosemite hold? Well, apparently, even the Web can’t hazard a paltry guess, as rumors have been practically non-existent.

Given the way the company has been pushing its computer and mobile platforms closer together in recent years, however, our money is on more of the same. Ideally, that will include changes to AirDrop that allow more robust file exchanges between computers and iPhones. That alone would thrill us—especially since the latest MacBook just lost almost all of its ports.

Apple TV & TV Streaming Service

If we look really, really hard at the invitation graphic, the colors might suggest the warm and cool tones in a TV's color sync settings. That would seem like a huge stretch, if not for one of the biggest rumors circulating ahead of WWDC: Supposedly Apple will unveil new hardware and a new service for its Apple TV set-top box. It's about time.

Streaming has ramped up quite a bit over the past couple of years—with Chromecast, new Rokus, Amazon Fire TV devices and others dominating living rooms, and new streaming-only services from HBO, CBS and others give consumers new reason to reconsider their cable subscriptions. Somehow, despite not having had a product refresh in two years, the Apple TV has managed to remain in the mix as one of the most popular TV streaming gadgets.

If the rumors are true and Apple announces a new TV device that supports downloadable apps and voice features, its former “hobby” will officially take its place among the company’s other marquee initiatives. It could also help seal cable TV's fate—especially if Apple launches its own new TV streaming service, as expected. For a monthly fee that will be presumably cheaper than standard cable, those users could get live TV piped in from the Internet to the box, as well as other Apple gadgets, before long.

What’s Left In The Balance

Either HomeKit has gotten comparatively short shrift in Apple’s attention department lately, or it’s much more complicated than the company anticipated. (The only notable related tidbit is that the Apple TV could play into it as a sort of smart home hub for Apple.)

Meanwhile, as the wispy thin 12-inch MacBook and its lonely USB-C port grabbed the Mac spotlight this spring, there was hardly any mention of MacBooks Air and Pro, apart from some incremental hardware updates. That includes the Air’s new support for external 4K displays and so-called "Ultra HD" TV of up to 3840 x 2160. While Apple could have saved its biggest Macbook Air or Pro updates for a featured spot in its WWDC address, that seems unlikely at this point—particularly since anyone who ordered an Apple laptop earlier would be royally ticked off at not having all the options laid out.

It seems like rumors of an iPad Pro circulate every year, and this year’s no exception. Apple could finally put this story out of its misery and make it happen—obviously, some folks want this so much, they’re not willing to let this notion die. But even if the company does have a bigger, 12-inch iPad in the works, the chances that it would announce the device this June—eight months after revealing its latest iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3—seem remote.

If we plot the trajectory from homes, laps and hands, over to wrists now, that brings us to the Apple Watch and its Watch OS. They’ve now gotten a once-over by the press corps, which seems impressed by the former, but mixed over the latter. So far, tricky, complicated interfaces and slow performance seem to dog Apple’s latest, which the company probably already knows. WWDC could introduce some improvements to help smooth some bumps over, just as some customers receive their new Apple wearable.

When it comes to WWDC, the only certainties at this point are the date, registration process and price, and the fact that Apple hates selfie sticks. Apple Insider noticed that the company has banned attendees from whipping out such camera monopods during the conference—which means, if you go and actually cross paths with Apple CEO Tim Cook or rockstar design honcho Jony Ive, keep your sticks to yourself. There will be other things you can distract yourself with. Hopefully.

Google has a small set of engineers trying to crack the tech world’s battery problem, the Wall Street Journal reports. Housed within the Google X lab, the four-member team—reportedly under the direction of former Apple battery master Ramesh Bhardwaj—has a lot riding on it.

Google has numerous battery-dependent projects covering a broad range of existing and emerging technologies. If its team can succeed with a new Google-made power cell, the result could go a long way to advance those initiatives—as well as everyone else's.

Google's Power Rangers

Reportedly, Bhardwaj’s team at Google X wants to make existing battery technology smaller and more power efficient. At NAATBaat International in February, Bhardwaj talked about the advantages of solid-state, thin-film batteries.

Such breakthroughs could accelerate several Google initiatives—such as Google Glass. Now in charge of the face gear project, Nest CEO Tony Fadell (who has worked for Google since it acquired Nest last year) took the much-maligned Glass back to the drawing board for a redesign in January. One of the face gear's biggest problems was its paltry battery life. A smaller, more efficient battery could give the device more longevity, while giving designers more room to improve the design. (In other words, it could become more functional and less stupid-looking.) Google’s electric, autonomous car could also easily reap the benefits of a smarter battery.

If someone can crack the battery problem, this image may be a thing of the past before too long.

Advancements in battery technology could help Google build stronger ties with hardware makers for Android and Android Wear, as well. As it stands, most smartphones and smartwatches have about a day’s worth of battery life, give or take a few hours depending on the device. If Google could offer phone and smartwatch makers more efficient power cells, plus the software support to take maximum advantage of them, those platforms could have a major new selling point beyond merely being Apple alternatives.

As we’ve seen over the last few months, Google’s relationship with its hardware partners appears to be on shaky ground. Despite the availability of Google-made operating systems for wearables, smart TVs and car dashboards, LG and Samsung are using their own software alternatives. HTC may be getting in on the act, too, with rumors swirling about HTC’s automotive ambitions. A Google-developed super battery could be a solid way to bring partners back into the fold.

However, Bhardwaj’s team will need to move fast if it hopes to gain an edge. Tesla is expected to announce its own battery initiative by the end of April, and Apple is constantly refining its own battery technology. Whoever reinvents the battery could figuratively and literally have power over the entire tech industry.

In 2001, Steve Jobs shared a vision of computing that would inform his company's road map for years to come. Before a Macworld audience, the late Apple co-founder explained that the personal computer was entering a golden age "driven by an explosion of new digital devices,” all connecting to and relying on the Mac to corral and make sense of their data. The computer, he said, would become the "digital hub" of our lives.

Fourteen years later, current CEO Tim Cook officially retired Jobs' vision by making a new laptop with a single port—the "new MacBook."

The new model marks a tectonic shift. The hub has moved, from local computing in our machines and gadgets, to the cloud. There’s no need for a beefy processor or numerous ports when online services do the heavy lifting for us. The Internet ably manages our media and other personal data, and its capacity will only grow over time, as smartwatches, homes, cars, fitness gizmos and health trackers put more of our lives online.

This is the future the new MacBook was built for, and it has nothing to do with plugging in devices.

Hub No More

Six years before he would introduce the iPhone, Steve Jobs imagined the PC as the nerve center of a user’s cavalcade of gadgets. He saw computers sitting at the center of cameras, music players, camcorders and other electronics:

We are living in a new digital lifestyle with an explosion of digital devices. It’s huge. And we believe the PC or more importantly the Mac can become the digital hub of our new emerging digital lifestyle, with the ability to add tremendous value to these other digital devices. Digital hub—key phrase.

Screencapped from Steve Jobs's Macworld address in 2001

So Apple equipped its Macs and MacBooks to serve that mission, ushering in (and out) numerous ports and optical drives. Over time, digital lifestyles changed, in large part because of products Jobs himself would later introduce.

iPods, iPhones and iPads (and their Android counterparts) reduced the pile of standalone cameras and other ancillary devices. Then online services, as well as wireless iTunes and iCloud syncing unshackled those mobile gadgets from their primitive sync cables. Users could easily keep accounts, services and data synced across devices without physically jacking in.

iPhone 5S

In that way, the new MacBook’s lone port has been years in the making. Apparently, Apple sees it as the way forward—which may explain why the computer seems ill-suited for today’s needs. It was designed for tomorrow’s. There’s a universal sense among reviewers that this “new MacBook is the future.” The Wall Street Journal calls it a “time machine,” and CNET hailed it as “the next chapter in laptops.”

They’re right, but not for the reasons they stated. Much of the hoopla swirls around the single USB-C port, a next-generation standard connecting display cables, power cords, iPhone cables and other gadgets.

The latest Chromebook Pixel also supports the new USB, but few others do yet. Apple embracing it so fully makes for an easy narrative that once more casts the company as a slayer of old tech. The company just tossed USB 2.0 onto the trash heap alongside USB 1.0, FireWire, optical drives and other standards. End of story.

USB-C port on the "new MacBook"

But there's something else very interesting that most everyone has overlooked: Apple finally let go of its proprietary MagSafe power connector. That opens the doors to vendors who can now, finally, offer external back-up MacBook batteries. Until now, the restrictions stymied them, or forced wacky work-arounds and hacks.

The broader view, however, is that Apple let go of proprietary chargers in its MacBook because it realizes that ports and cables are not the future. When everything runs and connects online, plugging in simply matters less.

The MacBook Has Become Apple’s Chromebook

Chromebook Pixel

Don’t think about the new MacBook like a full-fledged laptop. Think of it more like a skinnier Chromebook+, which can run applications if you absolutely need to and can come dressed in gold. (In the future, all our gadgets will be swathed in gold, obviously.)

Apple's cloud-first mentality even shows up in the computer's compromises. Judging by the first wave of reviews, the computer comes with a less-powerful processor (by today’s standards) and no fan—perhaps as acknowledgements that most people won’t have to deal with heavy computational demands on their machines. This is, after all, a world where people can use Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop without ever installing software.

Unfortunately, the MacBook also seems to suffer from slow performance, notably in activities like Web browsing. That's a crucial issue for a cloud-oriented laptop. Fortunately, software updates could do a lot to alleviate such quirks.

On the plus side, this version is lighter and thinner than the previous model, even more so than the current MacBook Air, and it boasts long battery life. Its 9-hour longevity comes from the novel way it stacks tiered power cells, so it can use every last bit of space afforded from ditching all those ports and streamlining its internals. It’s so primed for mobility, that you can’t even power it with a desktop monitor attached. (Thanks, USB-C.)

The new Force Touch Trackpad, a static slab that can still sense how hard you tap, mimics the Apple Watch’s Force Touch feature. It may be tricky to use, but at least it gives people a consistent input experience across devices. Spoiler alert: Force Touch will probably show up in a future iPhone before long.

Like its mobile brethren and Chromebook rival, the new MacBook does not come off as a productivity tool, per se. It features a flat keyboard and Apple's so-called “Retina Display” high-definition screen. Put them together, and you've got a laptop that seems more suited for looking at beautiful Instagram photos and streaming HD videos than banging out documents.

The Road Ahead

From high atop its perch in the mobile market, Apple saw how phones and tablets gave rise to ubiquitous computing, and how the Internet powers it for all devices, including computers.

The company crammed Facebook and Twitter into the heart of its iOS and OS X platforms, and bought Beats, a headphones maker with a popular music streaming service. It also put more of its applications online, including its iWork suite. But there’s still one gaping hole: the company's own cloud strategy, or lack thereof.

Apple has started patching its flaws, particularly by rolling out iCloud Drive last year, but it offers a measly 5GB free level, costly upgrades and iCloud security concerns that, in general, look like a hot mess. If Apple sees its future in the cloud, then it can’t ignore these and other issues.

It likely won’t. Cook and his team may be swamped, commanding an army of initiatives—including HealthKit, HomeKit, ResearchKit, CarPlay, the Apple Watch and a new, smarter Apple TV, not to mention possibly virtual reality gear and driverless cars. But they know the cloud will tie many of those efforts together, and not just any cloud. Apple wants it to be their own.

Either way, the PC is no longer our hub. It’s a spoke, one of many that reach out over the Internet, where we live more and more of our lives. Google embraced this reality with the Chromebook. Now, Apple has as well with its new MacBook.

The long-awaited Apple Watch finally became available for pre-order on Thursday—and within about six hours, according to 9to5Mac, all models of the wearable were sold out through June.

The Apple Watch is sold out through June.

As great as that sounds for Apple's business, it’s not much of a surprise. The Apple Watch is the company’s first new product release since the iPad in 2010, so anticipation among the devoted is understandably high.

But there’s another reason it’s not surprising: it’s entirely possible that there were never going to be enough Apple Watches to meet day-one demand.

Big Piece, Small Pie

Let’s turn back the clock to September 5, 2014. That’s when Motorola sent out emails to announce that the Moto 360, the company’s first smartwatch and easily the most anticipated Android Wear device, would be available for purchase in just a few hours’ time. Later that day, it was completely sold out—gone from Motorola’s website, the Google Play Store, and Best Buy’s retail locations.

The Moto 360 sold out within hours of its launch. But there weren't even a million units made.

The odds are excellent that Apple has sold way more than 720,000 Apple Watches. But chances are equally good that Apple didn’t set its April launch date with the firm expectation of filling all orders for the smartwatch. (Apple supposedly ordered 5 million units from its suppliers to cover April-June sales, although that still doesn't tell us how many were available today.)

For starters, a device as small and complicated as the Apple Watch—with its sapphire crystal display and other premium materials—isn't necessarily as easy to manufacture as some of Apple's bigger devices. Throughout 2014, there were repeated reports of Apple production snags that pushed the device's release to its current April 24 date. The Apple Watch is a tiny, extremely high-performance device, and it seems easy to screw up on a production line.

A number of units will be delivered on the 24th but it is unlikely every unit ordered tomorrow will be delivered on the 24th. This depends on how many units are ordered for a specific SKU compared to the supply we have of that specific SKU. This isn’t different from other new products. Sometimes demand exceed supply for a period of time. I can assure you we are working around the clock to get as many units to customers as fast as possible.

There will be an order limit of 2.

But let's also remember that scarcity—intended or otherwise—has worked pretty well for Apple. As we’ve discussed before, there are few better ways to boost a product's attractiveness than by making it hard to get. Exclusivity and specialness is part of Apple’s brand appeal, so if the highest-profile Apple release in years is extra rare, Tim Cook probably won't be crying in his soup.